3,000 students sign pro-marijuana petition
A University of Toronto graduate student yesterday claimed
to have 3,300 student signatures on a petition asking the Government to legalize
and control the sale of marijuana. Ian Mason, a philosophy graduate, presented the petition
in a brief to the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs at a
noon meeting in Hart House. About 250 fellow students and at least one professor
crowded into the debate room to give their support to liberalized marijuana
laws. There were at least 12 speeches from students, all of them
favoring the legalizing marijuana. None spoke against it. Mr. Mason is president of the U of T Legalize Marijuana
Committee; which he said is three weeks old and has 30 members. There are 25,000
students at the university. A brief presented later in the day at St. Lawrence hall
asked that marijuana be made available in much the same manner as alchol and
that non-medical drug takers be treated through medical and psychological
rehabilitation programs. "A medical and psychological program of healing should be
the focus of control mechanisms. Retribution by society...is destructive..." This was presented by J. Craig Paterson of the law faculty
at the University of Western Ontario. It was supported by the university's
student council and the medical and law student bodies. Copyright by the Globe and Mail, 1969. All rights
reserved.