Only licensed producers should sell pot

My company is cleared by Ottawa to consult with licensed marijuana producers going through the very restrictive licensing process, which requires more than 170 detailed operating procedures and risk assessment.

With more than 800 application rejections in 2016 alone, there are no shortcuts with the regulations/safety of legal marijuana.

Health Canada is leading this, and when multimillion-dollar licensed producers are involved with one pesticide issue, they’re shut down. That’s how tight these regulations are.

Victoria’s dispensaries: Where’s the dope coming from and how is it grown?

It is an embarrassment to see our city leadership running around trying to “regulate” something that Ottawa, the prime minister and law enforcement say is illegal and unsafe.

This has brought home-growers to sell their 25-pound hockey bags of pesticide-ridden green garbage to dispensaries, and everyone is running to the “compassionate” drive for access to medicinal requirements. Licensed producers only should be dispensing this.

Why would Ottawa require more than $1 million of work from a licensed producer, only to let “Basement Bob” flog his crap on every corner of our city?

If people cannot access their legal prescriptions through licensed producers, they aren’t governing their prescription-management well. People brewing moonshine cannot sell to the public; it’s same with this scenario.

I refer Mayor Lisa Helps to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. You don’t manage a great destination like ours by “allowing it because it will just re-open.” It is illegal, it is unsafe and is increasing crime.

Derek Sanderson Island IT Victoria