Obey rules or else risk backlash, pot industry warned
The legalization of recreational marijuana is a fragile thing that could face a political backlash if not done right, the chair of the federal cannabis task force warned industry leaders Monday.
“The thing we heard in Colorado and Washington: Whatever your regime is, you’ve got to enforce it, or otherwise it implodes on itself, and you’ve got the Wild West,” Anne McLellan told the first World Cannabis Congress, in Saint John, N.B. “And if it’s not enforced, you will lose societal support.”
Cannabis companies in the newly regulated industry may chafe against rules surrounding such things as brand and product promotion, said McLellan. But they need to be willing to play by the rules or else they could face pushback from citizens and politicians alike, still adjusting to the idea of having cannabis sold legally in neighbourhoods across the country.
“I listen to a lot of the established players, the LPs, who’ve been in this business with medicinal, and they actually get this,” said the former federal justice minister. “Having said that, of course, within the rules, they will push. But my advice would be: Let’s not push all that hard at the beginning, let’s try and work together to get this up and running, in a way that we all can have confidence in.”
McLellan’s comments come as the Senate last week passed the Liberal government’s Cannabis Act. The government now must decide what amendments to accept, expected to happen in the coming weeks. Legal sales will likely begin sometime in September or October.
The government’s challenge in the years ahead will be explaining that legalization is an attempt to reduce harms that already exist, rather than a move to fill government coffers and enrich well-connected business people, said McLellan.