Legal pot won’t kill black market, Mounties say
‘Naive’ to think that it will, health panel told
It would be “naive” to think that marijuana legalization will shut down the black market for the drug, an RCMP official stated during the first day of the House of Commons health committee’s study of the federal cannabis bill.
There are a number of issues that will need to be addressed to fight organized crime, including the possibility that the black market could undercut legal marijuana sales, Joanne Crampton, RCMP assistant commissioner of federal policing criminal operations, told the committee Monday morning.
As for the odds of eliminating the black market through legalization — it would be “naive to think that that could happen,” she said in answer to a question from Liberal MP John Oliver.
The Trudeau government tabled its bill to legalize marijuana in April, promising that pot will be legal by July 2018.
The legislation is being scrutinized before the House of Commons resumes on Sept. 18.
Anne McLellan, who led the federal task force on legalizing marijuana, told the committee that pricing will be key to the success of the legal market, but said that Washington state hasn’t seen an increase in marijuana use among young people since legalization.
Kathy Thompson, an assistant deputy minister in the Department of Public Safety, said it will take “some time” and a “robust regime” for legal marijuana to overtake the black market.
She said the government will need to meet the demand for legal pot, and that pricing will be “very important.”
Colorado, where marijuana was legalized in 2014, has been “slowly displacing organized crime year over year,” Thompson claimed.
Representatives from Colorado and Washington state will address the House committee on Tuesday.
Thompson also pointed to the federal government’s announcement of $274 million for pot-related policing and border enforcement on Friday, which she said will “ensure that (the RCMP and CBSA) have an intelligenceled approach to tackling and targeting organized crime.”
In answer to a question from NDP MP Don Davies, Thompson indicated the government will not consider a streamlined process for pardoning those who’ve been recently convicted of pot possession.
Statistics Canada data shows that 17,733 people were charged with possession of marijuana in 2016, equal to 76 per cent of all cannabis-related charges.
Currently, Canadians must wait at least five years after completing their sentence to apply for a pardon, and must pay a $631 fee to the Parole Board of Canada.
During a forum with VICE Canada in April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would “take steps to look at what we can do for those folks who have criminal records for something that would no longer be criminal.”
But on Monday, Thompson said the government has “no plans at this time to introduce an automatic pardon.”
Many of the specifics around pot legalization have been left to the provinces to hammer out.
On Friday, Ontario unveiled its plan for legal marijuana, which would restrict the sale to 150 governmentrun stores opened throughout the province by 2020. Ontario also opted to set the minimum legal age for recreational consumption at 19, while the federal minimum age is 18.
Some questions have been raised about whether the provinces could effectively prohibit legal marijuana use by hiking the minimum age or decreasing the personal possession limit to zero.
But Diane Labelle, general counsel for Health Canada legal services, said it’s unlikely that would fly, because it would run counter to the federal law. “Then a court challenge could look at the situation and see to what extent Parliament’s law has been frustrated,” she said.
Davies also raised concerns about the fact that edible marijuana products aren’t covered by this bill, saying that edibles make up a growing portion of Canada’s marijuana market.