THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF CANNABIS LEGALIZATION.
We’ve spent months hearing all the reasons cannabis should be legalized in Canada: More tax revenue, better regulation, new jobs, a way to undercut the Hells Angels, etc. But what about the stuff we may not see coming? The National Post did its homework on what happens when a government legalizes a drug, and found these not-so-expected outcomes of Canada’s bold plan to free the weed.
IN MANY PLACES, IT’S ACTUALLY GOING TO GET MUCH HARDER TO SCORE WEED
The legalization of pot has often been compared to the end of Prohibition. But here’s an aspect of Prohibition people often forget: Ending it actually made it much harder to find booze. Rampant bootlegging under the ban meant that alcohol was available anywhere, at anytime and to anyone. In the U.S., federal police officer Izzy Einstein famously kept a running tally of how quickly he could get a drink after arriving in a new city. The winner was New Orleans after a cab driver offered to sell Einstein a bottle of liquor only 35 seconds after his arrival by train.
In Prohibition-era Toronto, alcohol could be purchased on Sundays, holidays and without enduring an interminable LCBO lineup. Pot enthusiasts may end up pining for the pre-2018 days when weed dealers stood on every corner, unregulated dispensaries stood in every Vancouver mini-mall and 4/20 celebrations were an anarchic gathering of unlicensed hippies selling hand-rolled joints out of plastic shopping bags.
IT WON’T MAKE THE GOVERNMENT ALL THAT MUCH MONEY
Legalizing marijuana has long been touted as a kind of magic bullet for government revenue. And yet, Canadian governments have nevertheless figured out a way to sell pot at a loss. Ontario will be Canada’s single-largest pot market, and the only province headed by someone with some experience in selling cannabis. Even then, Ontario’s government-run pot stores are expecting to rack up losses of $48 million over the first two years. Even by 2021, Ontario pot revenue will only be about $100 million per year; enough to cover only six hours’ worth of provincial spending. In cannabis-loving B.C., pot tax revenue is only expected to start at about $125 million; barely enough to cover one-twentieth of the province’s annual debt-servicing costs. Meanwhile in Colorado, four years after the state legalized, tax revenue from pot is only about two per cent of the budget.
YOU’RE GOING TO STOP HEARING POT REFERRED TO AS ‘MEDICINE’
The No. 1 loophole to acquire alcohol under Prohibition was to get it prescribed by a doctor. By 1924, Ontarians alone were issued 815,000 medical prescriptions for liquor. But then booze was re-legalized, the prescriptions stopped and we gradually abandoned any notion that whiskey was a stimulating brain tonic. There’s reason to believe a similar reckoning is coming for marijuana. Cannabis has similarly been quasi-legal for years via an unregulated dispensary regime that taught vast swaths of the Canadian public to score joints by faking an elbow injury. Right now, the only medicinal qualities of cannabis that doctors are prepared to fully get behind are that it dulls chronic pain, reduces nausea in chemotherapy patients and may help with MS symptoms. There is virtually zero evidence that pot prevents cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s or whatever other snake oil promises you may have heard from Joe and Jane Dispensary.
CAR CRASHES ARE LIKELY TO GO UP
There is no conceivable way that marijuana could come close to reaping even a fraction of the carnage wrought on Canadian roads by alcohol. Roughly one-third of everyone killed in a Canadian car crash every year would still be alive if not for alcohol — and about half of those killed are innocent victims. But no less than the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has determined that cannabis legalization is usually followed by a bump in auto collisions. The Institute cited data from Colorado, Oregon and Washington, and found that “collision claim frequencies” went up in all three after they legalized cannabis. The increase was small, only three per cent, but in Washington and Colorado alone this worked out to about 77 extra deaths over three years. Among the larger population of Canada, a similar increase could be expected to kill three times as many. And Canadians certainly seem to have no immediate plans to stop getting high behind the wheel. According to federal polling, nearly 30 per cent of Canadians do not believe that cannabis use impairs operation of a motor vehicle.
A WHOLE LOT MORE NEWBORNS ARE POISED TO FAIL DRUG TESTS
Cannabis is a powerful narcotic; that’s mainly why it’s so popular. And obstetricians are generally in agreement that powerful narcotics are bad for developing fetuses. Despite this, after Colorado legalized pot in 2014, hospitals across the state were reporting a rise in cannabis consumption among pregnant and nursing mothers. At one particular hospital, roughly half of all newborn babies already had enough THC in their systems to fail a drug test.
One possible reason? Marijuana vendors were literally recommending their product to pregnant women. In a study published earlier this year, researchers called 400 Colorado pot stores pretending to be a pregnant woman with morning sickness. The correct answer is “consult your doctor,” but an incredible 70 per cent of the stores instead recommended treating the nausea with cannabis. Canadian pot stores will be a bit more tightly regulated.
GET READY FOR LOTS OF STONED DOGS AND CHILDREN
Only two years after Colorado’s legalization of cannabis, one children’s hospital reported seeing twice as many toddlers admitted while in the throes of extreme marijuana exposure, according to one study. It’s basically impossible to fatally overdose on cannabis, but it’s still not pretty: Emergency room doctors were treating kids suffering from respiratory problems, seizures, muscle spasms and vomiting — with the average hospital stay lasting 11 hours. Veterinarians working in “legal” states have seen a similar phenomenon. In a January letter to Health Canada, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association said its American counterparts had seen a “significant rise in reports of ingestion and toxicity in animals, particularly dogs.”
The situation is a little different in Canada, where the government has yet to legalize cannabis edibles due to precisely these fears. Nevertheless, pot stores will be stocking plenty of the ingredients needed for Canadians to whip up their own pot brownies, pot cookies and pot pasta. The likely end result of all this is that Canada is probably going to end up placing strict controls on any marijuana products likely to appeal to children and pets.