Canadians not all that stoked for legal cannabis
If ever the country was in need of a national mellowing out, it’s arguably now.
U.S. President Donald Trump is back to his flame-throwing on NAFTA, the pipeline file remains a twisted pretzel of uncertainty, the Saudis want us to say sorry to them, we want Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi to say sorry to us (or at least, stop willingly presiding over a humanitarian disaster) and our Governor General just doesn’t seem to be that into her job. Too much is happening! No wonder we’re stressed.
Yet, with weeks until it’s available legally, Canadians don’t appear to be lining up to avail themselves of the supposedly soothing effects of a little cannabis consumption: Only about one-quarter declare they intend to toke, or otherwise use marijuana for recreational purposes after Oct. 17, according to new polling from the Angus Reid Institute.
This is hardly the kind of excited delirium that appeared to greet the news that buying and possessing pot in this country would no longer mean breaking the law. Indeed, between massive 4/20 crowds converging each spring and public support for legalization as high as nearly 70 per cent just a couple of years ago, one might have expected Canadians to be significantly more jazzed about legalizing the herbal jazz weed.
Instead, we are oh-so-ironically anxious about it all. While support for legalization remains the majority view, the transition from idea to reality is bringing with it skepticism about the benefits proponents touted decriminalization would offer.
Canadians are unconvinced, for example, that Bill C-45 — the Cannabis Act — will succeed in discouraging marijuana use among young people, despite measures prohibiting the sale,
We are oh-so-ironically anxious about it all.
marketing and advertising of it to anyone under 19. Fewer than one-in-five (17 per cent) believe in the efficacy of such actions; the majority (57 per cent) do not.
They are equally jaded about the argument that legalizing and regulating the sale and distribution of pot will cut organized crime out of the economic equation entirely (only a teeny, tiny six per cent say this). Instead, half believe if gangsters take a financial hit it won’t be substantial, and they’ll still find ample ways to make money.
And what about all the money that’s supposed to flow in via legalization? Soaring pot stocks are the darlings of the markets as Canada’s global exports skyrocket. But people here are evenly divided over the realistic prospects of their own communities cashing in on cannabis. It could happen. On the other hand, tax revenues also depend on organized and ample access to the product through government sales and distribution channels.
Those channels are an unfinished patchwork at present: Online or in-store? Public or private? Plus, they’ve yet to be tested for efficiency. In what will inevitably be a period of growing pains at point of sale, consumers may well return to the sources they’ve been using up to now.
But that’s where the police come in, we are assured. Except Canadians are anything but reassured about the ability of law enforcement in their communities to, among other things, spot and prosecute impaired drivers. It’s not individual officers they necessarily doubt. Instead, lack of consensus between police departments and the legal community over which diagnostic tools and equipment to use has fed into this uncertainty. And in Ottawa, at least, police haven’t exactly been shutting down the illegal pot shops that now exist.
It’s all enough to blunt the hoped-for high of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau having delivered on an election promise that had young voters especially buzzed. Rather than increasing the appetites of the electorate to reward this government, legalization appears to be caught in a wait-and-see kind of haze.
A smooth transition could result in Canadians feeling nicely baked about the whole thing. A rough one could leave the country wanting to end a bad trip by punishing the prime minister at the ballot box. We’ll see, in about a year.