Does the public oppose marijuana decriminalization?
The third and final reason given by so many successive Ministers of Justice and Health as a reason for continuing the criminal prohibition of cannabis is that “public opinion surveys have consistently shown that most Canadians oppose liberalising access to marijuana.” In correspondence from both the Ministries of Justice and Health, I was assured that the surveys to which they referred had been conducted by the Ministry of Health in the early 80’s. However, my Access to Information request for copies of these surveys revealed that neither department had any record at all that such surveys had been done. They simply didn’t exist. The only survey they could find was Canada’s 1994 Alcohol and Other Drugs Survey. This survey clearly showed that Canadians are much more tolerant towards marijuana users than the government would have us believe. This survey reveals that 27% of Canadians think that the possession of marijuana should be completely legal, and that 42.1% of Canadians believe that
