What does the NDP need to change before the next election? x3

My response to the smear.

[img]http://blog.thismagazine.ca/archives/P__mugshot-gordon-campbell%20copy.j...

...And he's STILL premiere of BC.

And when all the peronalities have been discussed and categorized, and the entrails (media) have been dissected, just what is it that you expect party/leader to achieve in the absence of a plan for a truly sustainable future?

This "yapping poodle" still wonders, after all the fury of critical broadsides:

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But just how much bloody time do you strategists think we have?

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Originally posted by Mojoroad1:
[b]...And he's STILL premiere of BC.[/b]

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I agree. It's a shame the Liberals can run a lowlife like Campbell in B.C. - and have him elected premier - while a candidate of integrity like Kirk Tousaw feels the pressure to resign in order not to hurt the party's chance. Something deeply awry there.

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Originally posted by Mojoroad1:
[b]Here is one Suggestion that to an extent the NDP did do in the election, but must do much much more of.... I know people hate to bring up U.S politics as a shining light of an example BUT..... I mentioned this to Peter Tabuns, for Ontario Strategy and it should apply Federally. In the U.S the Dems, under Dean decided a few years ago to no longer focus all their resources on just the "swing states". (In Canada that would be NDP friendly, or 'contestable' ridings.) there it was called "the 50 state strategy"...and guess what, it paid off! The NDP IMO should follow that idea...as they have been at least during election time. It really was no accident Layton kicked off in the NDP Heart of Darkness - Calgary - because it made a very important statement to voters in Alberta...we're not writing you off because you are "un-winnable", same in Quebec. This must continue across Canada - and not just during elections. I know for a FACT that in the past many of party brain trust focused on the opposite. I think now they get it - or at least did this election. Hopefully the NDP will continue to try and make inroads everywhere.

[url=http://www.democrats.org/a/2004/06/a_50_state_stra.php]50 State Strategy Synopsis.[/url][/b]

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Been reading the [url=http://ndpoutsider.blogspot.com/2008/09/closing-financing-gap-part-1.htm... lately [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] ?

I don't know enough to say whether the BCNDP deserves the blame for how things went.

But that is a big problem with federal NDP ground campaigns: depending on the sections.

Its NOT a centralization versus decent question. The regional campaigns could be even more decentralized.

The problem is assuming that the sections are going to determine pretty much on their own who runs the campaign and everything except a message and organizational outline from Ottawa.

These days, there is a lot more talent and discipline in the federal party than in any of the sections. The sections are moribund, and very nepotistic to boot.

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Marijuana use does not significantly impair driving ability.

Nonsense.

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I know this will result in major thread drift, but I had to respond to the comment above.

There are a myriad of studies which show that moderate doses of marijuana, in the amounts commonly used by most people, is not significantly impairing, and is certainly far less impairing than legal doses of alcohol, as well as less impairing than tiredness, using a phone, or sunlight glare. Marijuana use is not a statistically significant cause of accidents.

For example, a 1999 University of Toronto meta-analysis of studies into pot and driving showed that drivers who consumed a moderate amount of pot typically refrained from passing cars and drove at a more consistent speed. The analysis also confirmed that marijuana taken alone does not increase a driver's risk of causing an accident.
[url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990325110700.htm]http://www...

A major study done by the UK Transport Research Laboratory in 2000 found that drivers under the influence of cannabis were more cautious and less likely to drive dangerously. The study examined the effects of marijuana use on drivers through four weeks of tests on driving simulators. The study was commissioned specifically to show that marijuana was impairing, and the british government was embarrassed with the study's conclusion that "marijuana users drive more safely under the influence of cannabis."
[url=http://www.mapinc.org/newscc/v00/n1161/a02.html]http://www.mapinc.org/ne...

According to the Cannabis and Driving report, a comprehensive literature review published in 2000 by the UK Department of Transportation, "the majority of evidence suggests that cannabis use may result in a lower risk of [accident] culpability."
[url=http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme3/cannabisanddri... ft4764[/url]

The Canadian Senate issued a major report into all aspects of marijuana in 2002. Their chapter on Driving under the influence of cannabis concludes that "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving."
[url=http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/ille-e/rep-e/rep... art4-e.htm[/url]

A 1992 study by the US Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, titled 'The incidence and role of drugs in fatally injured drivers' found that "The THC-only drivers had a responsibility rate below that of the drugfree drivers. … While the difference was not statistically significant, there was no indication that cannabis by itself was a cause of fatal crashes.”
[url=http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5450#Crash]http://www.norml.org/...

You can find links to many more studies into the effects of cannabis on driving here: [url=http://cannabisfacts.ca/druggeddriving.html]http://cannabisfacts.ca/drug...

However, as with any psychoactive substance, dosage is as important as the specific substance. Eating a large quantity of pot food will be much more impairing than smoking a joint.

A final question that will need to be resolved about marijuana and driving is how to deal with the growing number of legal marijuana users. There are thousands of Canadians who are permitted to use marijuana for medicinal use. Are they all permanently banned from driving? Or does their medical status make the marijuana magically non-impairing for them only? This will become especially pertinent under "drugged driving" laws which use a bloodtest to determine if you have been using marijuana.

[ 24 October 2008: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

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One thing the NDP must change is not booting out candidates like Kirk Tousaw for using drugs. That's shameful, and I have yet to hear the outrage over that. As for Dana, his story here is like his original one. He did nothing wrong, and anyway it was long ago, and anyway look at all the others, etc. A little more connection with how real people think is required before he runs again.

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I feel badly for Kirk, because I wonder if he would have resigned had I not been the first one to get attention. My video clips were a lot more extreme than his, and there were a lot of other confusing issues in my videos other than simple use of marijuana.

In terms of whether I did "something wrong" in the making of my Pot-TV videos and some of the other controversial things I have done or said, I have to say that I have not received one negative comment from anyone since I resigned my nomination. Not one person has emailed me to tell me I am a bad guy or that I should be ashamed. Not a single person has posted anything negative to my facebook pages.

When I searched the blogosphere for mentions of my name I found a few people who were mocking me, but nothing with any real animosity or attacking me. Most of the media coverage treated the whole situation as amusing instead of as a serious and immoral act on my part.

And even here on this thread, where certainly it would seem plausible that some NDPers would be mad at me for mucking up the federal campaign, there's no haters telling me off. I am actually surprised as I expected more anger to be directed towards me from somebody. All the feedback I have received has been sympathetic and positive.

My point in listing the many other politicians who have used pot or been involved in the illegal drug scene in some form was simply to point out that the voters don't seem averse to electing people who are pot smokers or alcohol drinkers, or who have broken the drug laws or behaved somewhat irresponsibly in the past.

Frankly, I think that if myself and the NDP campaign had been better prepared, we could have weathered the controversy over my videos, and it would not have harmed the party's vote. But I am not in charge of the national campaign, and under pressure from the BC Campaign Chair, and from some within my own campaign team, I felt it was best to step back.

The decision to resign was mine. I could have insisted on staying on, and I could have forced the BC Campaign Chair to get Jack Layton involved in the decision. But I decided not to do that. I didn't want to make this into a battle between me and the party, and I didn't want to give Layton more headaches to deal with.

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If you think anyone in BC wanted Dana or Kirk to step down, you are sorely mistaken, that decision was made by the Ontario brain trust and I suppose by the candidates themselves, so they say.

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Nope. The only conversation I had was with Gerry Scott, BC Campaign Coordinator. He definitely wanted me to resign, and to my knowledge he expressly did not involve the national team or Layton in the decision.

However, ultimately the decision was mine. And despite my regrets and my personal desire to keep going, I think a resignation was necessary.

However, most people don't understand how it went down. I actually resigned before the videos came out on the news. I actually resigned because of calls from the Globe and Mail about coca plants being sold at the Vancouver Seed Bank, which I co-founded and still help out at.

This article is the most accurate about how it happened: [url=http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n877/a01.html]http://www.mapinc.org/d...

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LARSEN RESIGNS AS NDP 'NOT CAMPAIGNING ON COCA PLANTS'

The co-founder of the B.C. Marijuana Party resigned yesterday as the federal NDP candidate for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast riding.

Dana Larsen, 37, resigned after questions about his involvement in the Vancouver Seed Bank and Tokers Lounge on East Hastings Street.

He used to manage the retail outlet, which sells seeds of rare and medicinal plants, including coca plants, the basis for cocaine.

He is no longer associated with the store and according to an employee coca seeds are not stocked anymore.

"We're not campaigning on coca plants," said Gerry Scott, B.C. campaign manager for the federal NDP. "It wasn't acceptable. It was a distraction and that's the end of it."

The party will select another candidate "as soon as possible," Scott said.

Larsen ran as a member of the Marijuana Party of Canada in 2000 and as a member of the B.C. Marijuana Party in 2001. He also wrote a book called Hairy Pothead and the Marijuana Stone and authored the Pot Puzzle Fun Book.

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I agree with Unionist that driving while stoned is a complete loser for legalization advocates.

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I agree as well. Most people believe that marijuana impairs driving, and trying to convince them otherwise is not easy, especially during an election campaign and right after they've seen me on the news about to toke before driving.

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you can't be a candidate until you express some understanding that those videos don't connect with real people.

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I don't understand what you are saying.

By "real people" do you mean the older, voting generation that has less knowledge and experience with marijuana and psychedelics than does the average person under 35?

I'm not actually sure that anyone has to connect with those videos in order for me to be a candidate.

However, there are millions of Canadians who have used marijuana and psychedelic substances. Many of them might be able to connect to me more readily than to other politicians who are not honest about their own past or present use of marijuana.

(I actually made two dozen video shows for Pot-TV. In all of them I am smoking pot and talking about marijuana and drug policy issues. Some of the shows are silly, some are serious. In one episode I took LSD, in another I smoked DMT. All of these videos are still available for viewing at Pot-TV.net but in an older Realplayer format.)

What specifically do you want me to say that I'm not saying? I'm not ashamed of making those videos, and for the most part I think they are pretty good and certainly groundbreaking in their own way.

Let's take a moment to remember Christopher Mayhew, UK Labour MP from 1945 to 1974. In 1955, while he was a sitting MP, Mayhew took part in a televised psychedelic experience. Under the guidance of his friend, Dr Humphry Osmond, Mayhew ingested a dose of mescaline and allowed himself to be filmed for the duration of the trip. Part of this footage was included in the 1986 BBC documentary "LSD - The beyond within." [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Mayhew]http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Unionist: I appreciate your comments and I understand where you are coming from. I just wanted that to be clear. I always try to be open to criticism and different ideas.

It seems to me like we're all on the same team here, and the debates are usually more about the strategy which will best allow us to achieve our common goals. I haven't felt personally attacked by anything anyone has posted here, and as a person who aspires to public office I don't mind criticism and commentary about my work.

Thanks for clearing that up, Dana I cannot believe Gerry Scott's actions on any of these accounts. I am writing him a letter and CCing Jack and the national party.

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Probably 1/10 of 1% of the population would be left indifferent by a photo of a political candidate smoking marijuana while driving and stuffing 20 joints into his face. I know you don't get it.

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The ratio might be a bit off, but I do agree. Strategically the debate around marijuana and driving is a difficult one. And it is made much more difficult when trying to defend my apparently irresponsible personal behaviour instead of debating the theory of whether marijuana use is actually impairing enough to represent a social problem. That is part of the reason why my stepping back as a candidate was a good decision.

The story behind that big mouthful of joints is that we had been rolling up joints for a big party the next day. We were just goofing around when I picked up a bunch and pretended to light them. Of course we didn't actually light any, we were just pretending.

For the record, I do not advocate smoking joints in amounts more than one at a time.

I don't think Kirk Toussaw quit because he advocated decriminalization. Everyone in the NDP knew he advocated decriminalization. If you knew who Kirk was at all you knew his issue was pot. So, it's a bit ridiculous to claim he was forced out because of that.

He quit because there was a YouTube video of him spending about half an hour inhaling and rating the quality of various strains of pot. This played on the news - along with the footage of Dana - just about every night for a week.

I think it's pretty clear that both Dana and Kirk's ill-concieved videos were used by people who wanted to take the NDP down a peg and distract from the issues the NDP wanted to talk about.

And I think people in the NDP (and I include myself as someone out knocking on doors for my candidate) wanted to deprive opponents of their excuse to ignore the issues we cared about (which start with ending the war in Afghanistan, stopping corporate tax cuts, hiring doctors, creating a childcare space for my kid and way way way way down the list legalizing pot).

So if "outrageous actions" consist of sitting a candidate down and saying, "It's not fair but every day you stay on the ballot, you are destroying the chances of 300-odd other NDP candidates because you made a stupid video and we think you should step aside." then I'm in favour of them.

I think unionist is wrong when he says the NDP will not decriminalize marijuana if they're in a position to do so.

I do, however, think his definition of being "in a position to do so" is a little different than most people's. If Jack Layton had come out of that room with Paul Martin in 2006 and said, "The corporate tax cuts are going ahead. Schools and hospitals will still face cuts. But it's going to be a lot easier to enjoy quality bud in Canada from now on." I'd have torn up my membership. And screamed.

I think decriminalization is an idea the NDP will support - way down low on their priority list. I'm fine with that. If you want it higher (no pun intended) you can come to an NDP convention and argue about it or, probably more effectively, work with the Marijuana Party or work outside the party system entirely.

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Originally posted by Dana Larsen:
[b]In terms of my personal political career, the question is will these videos mean that I can never again run for the NDP? Or was it simply the timing of their release which was the real problem during this election.[/b]

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The "timing" of the videos was not really the issue. They were all from way before the election. They became an issue during the election because the Liberals, and to a lesser extent the Conservatives, made them an issue during the election. And they'll almost certainly do so if you run again.

Ultimately, riding associations select their candidates but - and I hate to say it because you seem like a nice and sincere guy Dana - I wouldn't support you in a nomination in my riding. I know your opponents would simply play that clip of you smoking a joint in your car over and over and over again.

If you're a Republican you can get away with a past like that. Claim you've found Jesus. But I don't think you can get away with it as a New Dem, particularly if you want to raise the issue of decriminalization.

With respect, there is absolutely NOTHING that will make the public okay with toking and driving.

Maybe if Dana turned himself over to police and asked to be charged.

Even then he could never talk credibly about marijuana again - which, I assume, is something he wants to do.

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I admire your activism and I support it. But you still don't get that you can't be a candidate until you express some understanding that those videos don't connect with real people. I read your posts carefully, and unfortunately, I still don't hear that recognition.

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And some folks' priorities don't connect with either "real people" or the real world.

I somewhat agree, Coyote, but I think the statements Dana made in this thread are very sincere and a good step in the right direction. The "problem", as I see it, isn't Dana, so much as those others who are declaring that these kinds of actions are compatible with candidacy. I think Dana recognizes that they are not.

I still think it is vital to separate this from the case of Kirk Tousaw. Using marijuana, admitting it publicly, and advocating its legalization cannot be a pretext for pressuring a candidate to step down. I don't believe Tousaw did this on his own, and I think the NDP (whoever it was) has much to answer for here.

The way to decriminalization or legalization does not lie in exhibitionism and glorification - it is a matter of serious mobilization, education, and lobbying. And like any other important cause, it requires some degree of courage on the part of political parties claiming to stand for what is right.

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Originally posted by unionist:
[b]I still think it is vital to separate this from the case of Kirk Tousaw. Using marijuana, admitting it publicly, and advocating its legalization cannot be a pretext for pressuring a candidate to step down. I don't believe Tousaw did this on his own, and I think the NDP (whoever it was) has much to answer for here.[/b]

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Toussaw's resignation had nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics. He was nominated. He stood. Everyone knew what he was about. THEN the Liberals started peddling a viedotape of him judging some dope quality contest and it ended up on the national news. If it had been a videotape of him engaged in a drag race, or drinking himself silly, or berating people at a hockey game it would have had the same effect. The problem was that it made great TV and it made him look like an idiot.

It wasn't his position on marijuana that was the problem. Libby Davies has the exact same position but she didn't film herself holding a stone-a-thon.

The party asked him to resign (which is different than simply kicking someone out) because it was derailing the campaign.

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I had already resigned by the time the videos became an issue. In terms of my personal political career, the question is will these videos mean that I can never again run for the NDP? Or was it simply the timing of their release which was the real problem during this election.

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Yes you should run again, if the riding association doesnt approve you contact me for personal donations toward an independent candadacy. (this is a tad on the side of treason as an NDP'er as I'm "siding against the party") How you were pressured by the BC Campaign is rediculous and anti democratic as you were selected by your riding association by majority (usually hive consensus in my experience) vote and to even tell you personally that your activism and what you do on your personal time is unacceptable is in and of itself unnacceptable. next ime you run stick to your guns Dana, not only defend yourself against slander but attack those who wish to obscure the issues. Marijuana may not be priority 1 but does that mean we should not fight for it every bit as hard as anything else> and who decides what is priority one? Was any member of the NDP ever asked what the party should consider its flagship issue? I sure as hell wasnt.

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Come on Unionist, I think the optics of that would have been deriding. If they were going to add anything, democratic reform would have been my 4th add-on, and appealing across the wider political spectrum.

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Think again. Ive campaigned for both. I have knocked on doors fo all ages, races, creeds and parties trying to campaign for PR and heres the dirty little secret we dont like to admit in the NDP. People are more unlikely to accept PR than full unadulterated legalization of all drugs. we have tried referendums and education campaigns and we cant get any form of pr anywhere right now. people buy the propaganda. most people in canada havent lived anywhere where PR is the norm and dont understand it. But even the older baby boomers are former love children and many if not most have used and understand drugs and the lies surrounding their use.

Closing for length.