Distribution and taxation key to successful legalization
Marijuana report makes regulation recommendations
The political debate about cannabis regulation matured into adulthood Tuesday with the release of a federal report on marijuana legalization.
After a year-long study, nine Liberal appointees made more than 80 recommendations with nary a snigger to frame the legal regulatory regime for the recreational use of pot.
Leave the Cheech and Chong jokes in the vape-room; it’s no longer about cracking wise over slacker potheads.
It’s now a serious discussion about policy choices and legislative reform to end the 1923 criminal prohibition of cannabis.
The key ideas in their thoughtful 106-page document are that purchase and use should be restricted to adults 18 and over, there should be a provision for the personal growing of pot, advertising and promotion should be restricted as with tobacco, and workplace and driving laws need to be updated.
Among the underlying themes were keeping pot products out of the hands of children and providing evidence for policy discussions around addiction, health and social concerns.
None of this was dramatic considering a handful of U.S. jurisdictions have already blazed a trail on legalization and more are following their lead.
But it was a refreshing attempt to push the Canadian conversation about drugs toward verifiable data and away from ideological cant.
Unsurprisingly, the report said the present medical marijuana program will remain unchanged but may need tweaking depending on the final face of the new legalization scheme.
On the other issues, the experts, who volunteered their time, made suggestions that generally have broad support among the cannabis cognoscenti.
They believe well-regulated production, distribution and taxation can displace the massive illegal market. Getting the profits out of the pockets of organized crime is a major goal.
But the devil will be in the details of the distribution programs and tax rates.
I thought the most controversial point was panel chair Anne McLellan’s urging of continued enforcement of the criminal laws until new legislation is in place.
Those exploiting the transition period to legalization have led to the “establishment and proliferation of illegal activities,” the report noted.
Stand right up Vancouver city council and the brazen “dispensaries” earning windfall profits along with their black-market suppliers!
Be that as it may, it seems unfair to me and begs a constitutional challenge about the unequal and capricious enforcement of the law when you can laugh all the way to the bank here, but in Toronto or Nelson, end up in jail.
The suggestion that production remain for the time being in the hands of federally licensed corporations producing medicinal cannabis will irk some, too.
Yet that’s why the stock market jumped.
Such an approach would be a huge boon to the fledgling industry — offering it privileged access to a burgeoning market while also allowing it to offer a broader range of products.
Across B.C., expect the many guerrilla gardeners and their passionate customers to lobby for small-scale production offering unique products similar to farmgate wine operations. The task force acknowledged that.
“We heard from a great many parties that they wanted a diversity of producers, and we agree with that,” chair McLellan said.
That’s why the focus turns now to the provincial and territorial governments that will create and oversee the distribution networks. They will decide what legal cannabis looks like at street level.
Already, this report rejects proposals from Ontario and B.C. to piggyback cannabis on existing public-sector liquor operations on the basis that alcohol and cannabis sales should be kept separate.
The “dispensaries” movement will be happy with that.
The linchpin, however, will be tax rates.
Experience in the U.S. shows if legal cannabis is taxed too heavily, the subterranean market continues to flourish.
When all this change will happen is unclear. The federal government promised legislation this spring. But that must go through the parliamentary process while each province must also write interlocking legislation and create a distribution system.
There remains a lot of work to be done to correct a near century-old mistake.