Mood mellow as city ushers in legalized pot DUSTIN COOK
Edmonton entered the new Canadian reality of legalized marijuana Wednesday with a quiet buzz and plenty of pot talk.
From a small gathering that marked the stroke of midnight near Whyte Avenue with out-inthe-open tokes, to well-ordered lines at the six cannabis shops approved to open in city limits, the end of nearly a century of pot prohibition passed with less fuss than an Oilers playoff game.
“I am ecstatic,” said Wanda Keith, who along with her aunt Patti Kootenay, was the first to arrive on the red carpet greeting customers at the north side Nova Cannabis store at Namao Centre about an hour before its 10 a.m. opening.
Keith said she has used cannabis for medicinal purposes for several years. Legalization, combined with Alberta’s system of privatelyowned bricks-and-mortar stores, means she will no longer have to deal with the hassle of deliveries coming from Ontario.
“I am proud of Canada for doing this and taking this step. I mean, there’s a lot of people that are against it,” she said, adding she hopes legalization will end the stigma against marijuana users.
The closest thing to a frenzy came in the early minutes of the Alberta Gaming, Liquor & Cannabis commission’s online sales that launched at 12:01 a.m.
Heavy traffic on the albertacannabis.org site caused some to wonder if the system had crashed.
The issue was sorted out and the site was fully operational in about 20 minutes, said AGLC spokeswoman Chara Goodings.
“Everyone just slammed it right at midnight,” she said.
At its peak, the website had 11,000 users in the queue to make a purchase.
About 1,040 online orders were processed in the first hour of operations, she added. As of 5:45 p.m., the AGLC reported 8,300 purchases from its site.
A total of 17 retail stores opened across Alberta, with nearly a dozen of those in the Edmonton area. But beyond the store openings, few people made a big show of their new legal rights.
New ashtrays marked by pink ribbons lined the busy streets of Jasper and Whyte Avenues, replacing ashtrays that had to be removed after the city’s bylaw upped the smoking distance from windows, doors and air intakes to 10 metres. But there was no haze in the air along Jasper Avenue during the lunch rush.
City of Edmonton spokeswoman Carla Putnam Kerr said Wednesday afternoon that the day had so far been “business as usual” for bylaw enforcement officers, and no extra officers were required.
Alberta Health Services spokesman Kerry Williamson said that, as of late Wednesday afternoon, there had been zero cannabis-related visits to emergency departments in Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray, and only a “small number” of visits in Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton. Williamson added that Health Link, the province’s tele-health service, on average receives about 10 cannabis-related calls per day. On Wednesday there were eight.
Even a rally advertised online to mark the occasion at the Alberta legislature drew just a few dozen people who gave brief, celebratory shouts from scattered groups across the grounds at 4:20 p.m. (420 is code for smoking marijuana and also symbolized “Weed Day” prior to legalization).
From the city perspective, Coun. Michael Walters said Edmonton prepared for legalization as best it could, and now would watch and evaluate any impacts.