Cannabis Legalization: How to Change a Policy in Only 50 Years

This talk by Prof. Andrew Potter is part of our Winter 2020 Policy Lecture series. These academic talks are intended for ³ÉÈË´óƬ students, alumni and faculty.Ìý
Canada's criminal prohibition on cannabis lasted for 95 years, but we spent the last 50 years of that period engaged in a desultory attempt at reform. Why did it take half a century to change a policy that almost every major stakeholder felt was misguided?
About Andrew Potter:
Andrew Potter is an associate professorÌýat the Max Bell School of Public Policy.
A former journalist, between 2011 and 2016 Andrew Potter was the managing editor and then editor in chief of the Ottawa Citizen, and from 2006 to 2011 he was a public affairs columnist for Maclean's Magazine. He is also a former Director of the ³ÉÈË´óƬ Institute for the Study of Canada. Potter is the author of The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves, and the co-author, with Joseph Heath, of the best-selling book The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed.
Andrew Potter holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and did postdoctoral work at the Université de Montreal. He studied philosophy as an undergraduate at ³ÉÈË´óƬ, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993.