Pot panel produces sensible plan
The task force charged with drawing up a framework for cannabis legalization in Canada has struck a fine balance between providing access to a regulated supply that should undermine the black market and introducing restrictions that minimize the harm associated with pot.
The nine-member panel, chaired by former Liberal minister Anne McLellan, was asked to make recommendations that will have implications for all Canadians for years to come.
There can be no doubts that we are about to witness widespread changes to the laws and culture of our country.
The task force made a good fist of balancing the input from the 30,000 submissions from individuals and organizations that it received.
The key recommendations weigh the impact of developmental harm to vulnerable populations, with the risks that are already present because of the black market.
The task force recommended the national minimum age of purchase be 18, except in those provinces where the legal drinking age is 19. This proposal was made in the face of opposition from public health experts who favoured a minimum age of 21.
The panel said it felt setting the minimum age too high risked preserving the illicit market.
But, while it will have pleased producers with its age limit suggestion, they will be less amused by the recommendations on advertising and packaging.
The biggest battle the government will face if it decides to implement the report is the proposal to restrict the advertising of cannabis, in similar fashion to the promotion of tobacco. The panel went a step further by suggesting the government require plain packaging for cannabis products. so that only the company name, price and the strength of the pot is visible on the label. The industry has long argued that strong brands and product differentiation matter in a new market.
Still, existing producers will take solace in other recommendations that helped send cannabis company stock prices soaring.
The task force suggested the current federal system for medical marijuana be used as a starting point for a new national system, meaning a continued role for the 36 existing licensed suppliers who produce Health Canadaapproved pot. New producers would be encouraged to enter the market but would have to comply with the strict rules currently in place to meet safety and quality standards.
Concerns were raised by potential entrants that the cost of compliance with regulations would shut them out of the market and hurt competition. But McLellan said Canada needs to show caution, as only the second country to proceed to full legalization, and that the federal government should continue to regulate production.
But, while regulation over safety and quality is understandable, the panel veered into murky territory with the call to use production controls, in the early days of the new market, to influence pricing.
Mention of “controls to align supply with likely demand” to avoid oversupply sounds doomed to failure — the fleet-footed black market would run rings around a quota-setting bureaucracy.
Yet there was also an appreciation that market forces will prove too powerful to control.
The panel recognized higher prices will lower use but that, if they are too high, consumers will be pushed toward the illicit market.
In contrast to its recommendation to impose production controls, the task force concluded that governments set up a “flexible system” that can adapt tax and price approaches to changes in the marketplace. It suggested that taxes be increased with potency to discourage purchase of stronger products.
Nowhere is the complexity of legalizing cannabis more apparent than in the task force’s treatment of pot-impaired driving. There is simply no equivalent to the per se limits that apply to drunk driving.
The panel said experts made it clear it is not a new challenge — the criminal offence of driving impaired exists today — but that the levels of the drug in bodily fluids cannot be used as a reliable indicator about the degree of impairment.
“There was little agreement among experts on what the limit should be,” it said.
But that was a rare fudge. For the most part, the task force has produced a workable, sensible framework for the sweeping changes that the birth of legalized cannabis will bring to Canada’s health and justice systems, not to mention its retail and food and drink sectors.
This government has shelved major reports it didn’t like in the past — last April, it ignored the most contentious findings of a parliamentary committee report into assisted dying.
But the McLellan task force has produced solid recommendations that are unlikely to suffer a similar fate.