We've heard plenty about Justin Trudeau's admission of marijuana use, and that's before the Conservatives have even had the chance to make an attack ad about it. I find that kind of troubling; it's evidence of the Americanization of Canadian politics.
And just to be clear, I'm not using "American" as a simplistic insult, as in, it's American so it must be worse. But I do believe that overall, our political culture has been better than theirs. And a big reason is that we tend to take a practical attitude to things. We don't get caught up in Obama's bowling score or Romney's dog transporter. At least we used to: here we are spending days discussing a politician's occasional use of a drug most of us aren't really worried about.
Yes, there are reasonable arguments as to why cannabis shouldn't be accepted, but I have trouble believing that many Canadians really believe in those arguments. Why? Because if you really believe strongly that marijuana shouldn't be part of civilized society, then there are bigger things to worry about in Canada than the odd toke by the leader of the third party. Nearly half of Canadians have used it, and more than 12% use it at least once per year. So if you feel this drug is truly dangerous, then you should already be scared into taking political action.
People are condemning Trudeau even though there hasn't been a large national push against marijuana use. That tells me that either they're just looking for something to get angry about, or we've fallen into the American trap of judging our politicians by a social code fifty years behind the one we use in our personal lives.
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