RAINING ON RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA PARADE
Grinch-like plan misses the point
The provincial government’s initial plan for marijuana legalization must have been put together by spoilsports and dour Mrs. Grundies. It’s tone-deaf.
I preferred it when politicians were making Cheech and Chong jokes and snickering about smoking pot.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth sounded like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas unveiling details of the province’s blueprint for cannabis.
Someone forgot to tell him: We’re ending Prohibition, Mike, not starting it. It’s “recreational” cannabis — that means fun! It’s a new blooming industry worth billions.
Instead of policies that might have reflected that, we got “safeguards” driven by “our priorities of protecting youth, promoting health and safety, keeping the criminal element out of cannabis, and keeping our roads safe.”
What about the Green Gold Rush! What about the soaring stock market! Marijuana Millionaires! Job creation!
Somehow it’s all being overlooked because of anecdotal speculative naysaying — the same kind of rhetorical concerns that kept the criminal cannabis laws in place for nearly a century.
With all due respect to retiring public health saint Dr. Perry Kendall, there is no evidence to support not selling booze and cannabis in the same shops. None.
His worries about a “potential risk of increasing co-use of the products” and “co-sale might be seen to condone and encourage co-use of cannabis and alcohol” are Pollyanna fears — not evidence.
Similarly, Kendall’s complaint that medical patients “may not wish to enter liquor stores to purchase cannabis?”
As provincial health officer, he knew the federal mail-order system could accommodate them. His complaints were red herrings.
No Lotto tickets, tobacco, clothes, gas or snacks for sale along with cannabis? Ridiculous. I understand the joke about keeping the Cheetos away from potheads, but does somebody have a study showing Lotto sales can cause a co-dependency with cannabis?
And no tastings like they do in wine stores? Why not?
Farnworth “forbid” all those horrors. Talk about Dr. No.
It’s like his 30-gram limit for personal possession — why?
You cannot overdose on a bag of B.C. bud. You can die guzzling a couple of 40-pounders.
But it’s OK for boozers to pick up cases of wine and boxes of liquor for a bash, but buying a couple of ounces of green for a weekend with your friends isn’t allowed?
Hmmm.
Kendall and his ilk in the medical community are scaremongering about cannabis compared with alcohol.
Too bad they weren’t as outspoken about the serious health concerns caused by the War on Drugs — tens of thousands jailed, gang warfare on our streets, and communities riddled with illegal growing operations.
While Kendall and his fellow Liberal appointees on the legalization task force were wringing their hands about the danger to children, former politicians, police officers and insiders were investing in pot stocks.
The province’s approach essentially frowns at people who like to get high or grow cannabis. The best that can be said is: It could be worse.
There’s time to fix it and to focus at least partly on policies to help us profit from B.C.’s expertise, leverage the local brands and encourage an industry that already employs thousands.
This shouldn’t have been about reinventing the grow-op business. It should have been about bringing a successful, existing underground industry into the light.
B.C. has a chance to lead Canada on cannabis.
It should embrace the employment opportunities, the tourism potential, the joie de vivre with which California has legalized, not pour water on the parade and allow exaggerated fears and moralism to dominate the discussion.
Why should landlords have a right to ban growing cannabis? What’s next — no brewing beer or fermenting a bit of wine in a closet? No pickling ?
Laws should protect landlords from destructive or dangerous activities by tenants, not empower them to dictate what herbs tenants can grow.
Instead of dealing with these issues, we get sermons about the potential dangers to children?
Isn’t bleach lying around the house more dangerous to kids than pot?
Or how about those warnings from doctors’ groups that the brains of 19-year-olds are too vulnerable, so let’s make the legal age for cannabis consumption higher than the legal age for drinking, voting or dying for your country?
There has been not enough talk about transitioning those already growing, producing and selling into the legal framework, about promoting cannabis-based tourism, about derivatives, about edibles, or the potential for marijuana akin to the artisanal wine and craft beer industries.
To say we’re going to treat a product that is less harmful, poses fewer problems and offers so much economic potential with more restrictive laws than alcohol supported by Father Knows Best speeches is insulting.
Let’s get an economic development minister involved along with the province’s top cop and a professional scold.
It should embrace the employment opportunities, the tourism potential, the joie de vivre with which California has legalized.