OTTAWA — Canadians are "increasingly likely" to support the legalization or decriminalization of drugs, including marijuana, the public safety minister's top bureaucrat has quietly advised.

It's a message that runs counter to the Conservative government's firm opposition to softer penalties for recreational pot smokers — an issue that has flared up regularly on the federal campaign trail.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau proposes legalizing marijuana — selling and taxing it much like alcohol — while the NDP's Tom Mulcair has come out in favour of decriminalizing pot. Trudeau has argued legalization would help shield young people from marijuana by closely regulating a trade now run by criminals.

Weed, Pot, Mary Jane, marijuana – these are all names for cannabis and its derivatives. Marijuana has been helpful to people with chronic pain issues, in calming muscle spasms and in neutralizing the nauseating effects of medications.

According to the Canadian Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)’s website, 44% of Canadians say they have used marijuana at some point in their lives. A Statistics Canada report on Police-reported drug offenses in 2013 stated that there were approximately 73 000 reported cannabis offenses that year, 80% of which were for possession.

KELOWNA, B.C. – Medicinal cannabis is being used instead of prescription drugs including opiate pain killers, according to a study conducted jointly by UBC Okanagan and the University of Victoria.Among 473 Canadians who participated in the study back in 2013, 80 per cent reported using pot as medicine instead of a drug prescribed by their physician.

Among 473 Canadians who participated in the study back in 2013, 80 per cent reported using pot as medicine instead of a drug prescribed by their physician.

On Saturday October 3, 2015 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated to a cheering partisan audience: “Tobacco is a product that does a lot of damage. Marijuana is infinitely worse and it’s something that we do not want to encourage.”

He added, “There’s just overwhelming and growing scientific and medical evidence about the bad long-term effects of marijuana,” not providing examples or citations.

Politicians know how to harvest the low hanging fruit at election time.

Now, Justin Trudeau has sniffed out the low hanging cannabis on the campaign trail — and promised to legalize it.

It’s time, long past time. The Liberal leader can make up for the sins — or omissions — of his father in failing to decriminalize marijuana possession generations ago, when Pierre Trudeau ignored the recommendations of the 1973 Le Dain Royal Commission he created as prime minister.

As the marijuana legalization movement builds up steam, prohibitionists are grasping at straws to defend an increasingly untenable status quo. The most recent argument for prohibition comes from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who claimed that marijuana was “infinitely worse” than tobacco.

Why you may soon be seeing your medical cannabis producer in grocery stores

Hemp, quinoa, coconut and various oils have all had a comfortable place on Canadian retailers shelves for decades and consumers can now expect to find several new products to try in the massive battlefield of healthy food from some local cannabis farmers.

Enter the MMPR cannabis parent companies Mettrum Health Corp. and The Peace Naturals Project. Each company holds license to produce and sell medical cannabis under the MMPR in Canada via the mail to registered patients.

The Canadian Medical Association and the federal government apply a far more rigid standard to prescribing marijuana, resulting in negative — or even deadly consequences, say experts from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

Medical marijuana is held to a different standard than other prescription drugs despite research suggesting it has therapeutic benefits, say three experts from the centre in a commentary publish Friday in the Journal of the Canadian Public Health Association.

“When it comes to prescription marijuana, patients’ needs should be considered above political considerations,” Dr. Julio Montaner, one of the authors, said in a news release. “There could be great harm in ignoring the medical uses of marijuana.”

Medical marijuana could cut down on the use of addictive painkillers according to a new paper in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, but some of Vancouver's best known researchers say reluctant doctors and a confused federal government are failing to act.

 "When it comes to prescription marijuana, patients' needs should be considered above political considerations," said study co-author Dr. Julio Montaner of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. "There could be great harm in ignoring the medical uses of marijuana."

Study co-author Dr. Thomas Kerr says Canada is in the midst of an epidemic of opioid abuse and related overdose deaths, and that numerous studies have shown painkillers such as oxycontin are dangerous and prescribed too frequently.