Weed and legal limbo

This editorial ran in the Amherst (N.S.) News:

There’s a distinct lack of clarity at this point about how a full-fledged marijuana sales and distribution apparatus is going to spring to life across the country in just 10 short months. But that’s not the only place where we’re short a little clarity: with things in legal limbo, you have to wonder when police forces are going to simply stop raiding black market marijuana dispensaries. Yes, the law forbidding the sale of marijuana is still in place. So, the dispensaries are in a spot: their product is illegal right now without a prescription, and will likely remain, at best, a bootleg product even after legalization. Where provincial governments legislate control of alcohol to their own Crown corporations, you don’t see any private liquor businesses operating on Main Street.

That being said, in province after province, police forces have staged raids on dispensaries when the sales become too obvious, too public and, frankly, too embarrassing for the police services involved.

It’s tough to see how this makes sense, either from the point of view of the criminal justice system or from those caught up in it. Is it fair to raid one public dispensary, but not all? Are there unwritten rules nascent dispensaries should follow?

Maybe there should be some interim guidance from the federal government. Or better yet, some common sense.