Jordan Peterson on Canada legalizing recreational marijuana: ‘It’s about time!’

Dr. Jordan Peterson — a prominent best-selling author and psychology professor from Canada who has a massive following — has spoken out about his home country legalizing recreational marijuana.

And he's in favor of the move.

What did he say?

In a recent YouTube video, Peterson lauded Canada's decision to legalize recreational marijuana and pointed to several reasons as to why the move is a good idea.

When asked his thoughts on the country's decision, Peterson minced no words.

"It's about time, that's my thoughts," he said in the video. "I think that once a certain number of people break a law, then it's not reasonable to have the law. That's part of it."

Peterson added that it made no sense for marijuana to be illegal when alcohol — which he deems infinitely more dangerous — is legal.

"[S]moke your damn pot and try to not act like too much of a moron when you're stoned," he added in a matter-of-fact way. "That's what it looks like to me."

The best-selling author explained that he also feels that the danger of unnecessarily "restricting people's freedoms" is "more dangerous than the danger of not restricting them."

"[Y]ou're entitled to go to hell in a handbasket in your own manner," Peterson shrugged. "But I do think that if you're going to engage or indulge in your favorite drug of abuse, that you should be as little amount of annoying to everyone around you, as you possibly can be."

Peterson also added that he believes legalizing recreational marijuana is a step in the right direction when it comes to the war on drugs.

"I would also say, with regard to drug trade in general, here is a bunch of consequences of the war on drugs, a lot of them unexpected," he said.

"First of all," he said, "terrible incarceration rates — especially in the United States — that's not so good."

His second example included the dangers of "dumping ... hundreds of millions or billions of dollars into the hands of serious criminals."

"So, maybe the government has to tax and regulate, like it does with cigarettes, and it does with alcohol, and to some degree it does with gambling," he added.

What else?

Peterson also warned of the government's necessary duty to keep up with the times — and drugs' increasing danger.

"[T]he next issue is one of the consequences now of the classification of certain drugs as illegal is that the chemists are faster than the legislators, and so what they do is they keep making variants of addictive drugs, and now instead of a dozen drugs of abuse — which is what we had, say 20 years ago — we have like, 300, and some of them are way more addictive than the original drugs," he explained.

He concluded, "Well, we'll see. ... The streets aren't full of stoned people bumping into walls. Nothing's changed. I hope it works. I hope that the government regulates it properly, that they derive tax revenue from it, and that people use alcohol a little less ... because alcohol is a really dangerous drug."