Session 4: Legalize it!

Then came the truly controversial session, dealing with the legalization of marijuana use, assisted dying and prostitution – and all the passion that these issues bring.

Wanda Morris, director of Dying with Dignity Canada, led the session with a sobering discussion on the legislation of assisted death. Morris pointed out that the terminally ill desperately need assistance in order to have a gentle death, and in order not to inflict further unnecessary trauma on their families. Although choice is embedded in our medical system, she argued, the most critical choice of all – that of life and death – is taken away from us by our government. The statistics show, Morris pointed out, that the grey area of assisted death without explicit consent is actually reduced when assisted dying is legalized.

Up next was the trio of Bedford, Scott and Lebovitch, discussing their landmark constitutional challenge to three of Canada’s prostitution laws: public communication for the purposes of prostitution, operating a bawdy house and living on the avails of prostitution. Arguing that these laws merely pushed prostitutes into unregulated, unsafe conditions, they argued that we must move away from a moral basis for legislating prostitution and move towards a safety basis. “We really like our jobs”, Valerie Scott said with a big smile, and according to the new legislation “we really are persons”.

Moses then introduced a clip from ideacity 2001 of pot activist Marc Emery, who now sits in a U.S. prison for his efforts. With us today was his wife, Jodie Emery, who began the talk in tears after seeing her husband on the screen. She recounted for the audience Marc’s extensive history of civil disobedience, and spoke passionately about the cause for which he ultimately went to prison. Emery had $11 to his name when he was arrested for selling marijuana seeds, because with his proceeds he was funding the fight for the legalization of medical marijuana – not your typical drug kingpin. To close Jodie argued that marijuana doesn’t hurt people nearly as much as the war against marijuana does. This could have been said by any of the speakers in this session regarding their own cause.

Then comes the ‘you had to be there’ part – comedian Derek Seguin giving the audience a much-needed few minutes of levity and laughter, followed by the amazing Lemon Bucket Orkestra and their unique style of Klezmer madness.

Read full bios of all our speakers and performers on this page under the IDEACITY 2012 tab.