Justin Trudeau held a town hall meeting in Winnipeg on Wednesday where a local pot advocate made him aware of a new strain of marijuana named after the prime minister.
Steven Stairs told the prime minister that potential pardons for those convicted of marijuana possession were going to save lives.
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He then asked: “Would you give pardons for people convicted of trafficking cannabis?
“Small-time drug dealers,” he went on to explain before moving onto his next issue.
“My second point is, recently a strain, that’s a type of marijuana for you people out there, that’s named after you. It’s called Justin True-dope.”
After a round of laughter from the audience, Trudeau smiled before answering.
“We are moving forth with the legalization of marijuana from a public safety and public health perspective, not from a profit-making perspective,” he said. “The system we have right now is broken.”
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Trudeau then went on to offer a further explanation as to why the Canadian government is legalizing marijuana, in part to get the “criminal elements out of it.”
Trudeau finally got around to answer Stairs’ question.
“Yes. I have said we will look after the law has changed at pardons for people who have been convicted of possession,” Trudeau explained. “But we are not at this time thinking about pardons for people who have been convicted of trafficking or pushing or dealing.”
The federal government has committed to legalizing marijuana in 2018.