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Crucial final vote this week for marijuana legalization in Canada

fatigues

Active member
Veteran
The pending disaster in all of this is the roll-out of legal weed in these government stores.

Here's the thing: the level of Nanny State going on here is really exceptionally high in most of Canada's provinces.

B.C. and Alberta aren't that bad actually. But the rest of 'em are all variants on a theme of craptastic.

The problem is that there were a whole bevy of interests catered to in order to get this Bill through the Liberal party caucus in a form that the party would support. So the task force was chaired by Anne McLellan, a former Liberal Minister of Justice from Calgary.

Put bluntly, when the chair of your task force is a woman in her mid-60s, this is not going to lead to a permissive approach, assuming the demographics of her age and gender bear out. Grandmothers are history's natural born leaders of the Fun Police™ when it comes to vice. And her task force's recommendations were politically packaged in a deliberately "Fun killing" way to persuade those Liberals with misgivings to support the Government's plan. Legalization was to:

1- NOT be a normalization of cannabis: NORMAL would be bad. We can't have that. We need to virtue signal our disapproval; This is a serious business!

Policy Prescription: Legal Pot, while legal, should still be disapproved by all right thinking people. It was not to be promoted in any fashion.

Policy Prescription:
We can't allow vape and smoking lounges or permit people to smoke weed in a club/bar setting. That would be cool and normal and fun -- and legalization is a serious matter. We can't let it be fun.

2- No allowance for branding of cannabis: Borrowing a hyped up model of the puritanical approach to tobacco packaging in Canada, legal weed would feature a strain name, but no logos. THC and CBD info, but nothing sexy and no significant means of differentiation of products. Cannabis was not to be treated as a large and varied species of hundreds of phenotypes. It was to be treated as a commodity;

Policy Prescription: Weed should be packaged plainly and no branding or logos should be permitted. No company should be allowed to advertise or develop brand loyalty. That would be BAD.

Policy Prescription: We should not actually promote the sale of cannabis. We should only barely tolerate it. As if there was a guest over for dinner who has stepped in dog shit. We will sniff in a demeaning fashion and pretend to ignore it.

3- Not your Father's Marijuana: The pearl-clutching involved as a reaction to high THC weed was over -the-top. The suggestion that beer, wine and distilled sprits all feature different alcohol percentages and are consumed in different amounts and different methods was purposefully ignored. High THC weed was to be avoided as BAD MOJO

Policy Prescription: The public gets only "mids" to buy; no better. High THC dope will not be permitted to be sold. Shatter and ISO hash is verbotten.

4- "Drugged Driving" Now with Added Fear!: Despite the fact that it has been a crime to operate a motor vehicle under the influence of cannabis for NINETY-THREE 93 years in Canada, and that we had a vast amounts of data that confirmed that "drugged driving" was not a public health menace, the Task Force heard almost none of this evidence and wholly ignored what little they did hear. They had made up their mind that a public heath crisis was on its way.

They decided this notwithstanding the fact that 15% of the Canadian population regularly used cannabis. As they were all of driving age, this suggested that Canadians had been sharing the roads with stoned drivers since the 60s. Yet, there was no public health crisis signal that had ever been activated. The task force decides that this was because the stoners were also drunk at the same time.

So the legalization Task Force invented Schrodinger's Stoner - the 19 year old who smokes high THC content concentrates all the time, but never drove while high as he was perma couch-locked.

The prohibitionists seized upon this, insisting that legalization was moving "too fast" and that the cops needed "more training and more time".

To do what? To NOT arrest people? To arrest people for drugged driving, a crime that police have been tasked with enforcing for the past 93 years? The mainstream media never talked about the flawed logic here -- never pointed out that maybe people who drive while high actually aren't as much of a threat as those who do so while drunk. That comment was never mentioned on television that I saw other than once by Marc Emery on a breakfast television interview (which was promptly ignored), because Marc Emery.

Policy Prescription: Canada will develop new "scientific" methods for road-side tests which will be applied regardless of whether or not they work. We will harp on the dangers of stoned driving and wait for the carcasses to pile up on the Trans-Canada highway like roadkill.

Policy Prescription: Canada must (read: the provinces "should") ensure that cannabis and alcohol are never sold in the same place, because that would encourage their consumption at the same time.

5 - No room for Experienced Growers: This legalization would not only "save the children" by destroying the black market and making weed as hard to buy as cigarettes (which truthfully are harder for kids to buy than weed), but legalization MUST stick it to "organized crime". Those motherfuckers are the enemy and the ones who will feel the wrath of legalization. They must not become part of a legal market as that would reward them. We can't have that.*clutch pearls*

Policy Prescription: All growers will be licensed and have no criminal record. If they were previously involved in a cannabis offence, they can't be involved in the new system. Small growers can only sell to large Licensed Producers, which in turn can sell only to the government approved distributor (usually the provincial government's own corporation acting as retailer). We will have no stoners in this business! Businessmen, politicians, former police officers, venture capitalists, scientists in lab coats = Good. Anybody actually involved in cannabis to date? = Bad.


7 - Okay, Allow Home Growing if we Must: On this, the Task Force did finally knuckle under and admit reality. There would be home growing of weed. There were debates over plant heights and plot size restrictions, but ultimately that was all recognized as unenforceable and Liberals don't like unenforceable crimes. They relent and allow for 4 plants per home, whether inside or out, flowering or not. You get 4. IF you grow them well ,that's probably enough for any couple. (And in fairness, despite the protestations of come chronic users on ICM, 4 plants is enough to grow more than enough weed for a couple to consume on their own if they know what they are doing. If they don't? Uhm...never mind that!)

Policy Prescription: Details on how the growing will be managed in terms of yard security, etc, will be left to the provinces. Same thing as to whether landlords can restrict it in their buildings.

And on this front, the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba finally showed their prohibitionist flag and have purported to ban home growing outright in those provinces. (See Below.)

The Provinces: Herding Cats

Now, you also must understand that in Canada, there is only one criminal law. There are no provincial crimes. It's all Federal. Prosecutions of crimes are undertaken by provincial Crown Prosecutors, but the law they apply in those courts is all the same criminal law. One country; one criminal law.

Problem: when you legalize a product, then it's legal. Then Canada's federal government no longer has a role in determining how a legal product will be sold, because that jurisdiction in Canada falls under "property and civil rights". Under Canada's constitution, that means legal weed is a provincial matter to regulate. If it's illegal, the Feds have exclusive jurisdiction. But legal weed? That's for the provinces to determine.

And getting the provinces of Canada to agree on the same procedures is like herding cats.

Accordingly, we have a bevy of approaches across the country. B.C. and Alberta have gone for largely private sellers, licensed by the provincial government. This tracks how liquor is sold in Alberta, and reflects the more cannabis friendly culture of B.C..

In the rest of the country though, it's being sold largely by government owned stores, as is all alcohol (and most beer) in Canada. (Yes, really.)

The obvious solution would be to add a section to existing provincial liquor stores and roll out cannabis products that way. You might also open specialty shops too with a larger range of products for sale -- as is done for large specialty wine stores already (they sell expensive connoisseur wine in such stores with an expansive inventory; no hard liquor or beer in those specialty wine stores).

BUT, that would break the policy prescription of NOT selling cannabis and liquor from the same store. If we did that you see, our virtuous non-cannabis-smoking people might have to SEE cannabis -- and it is very important that we not force such nice people to see such "dirty stuff".

So now we have Ontario, Canada's largest province, decide it would sell cannabis through its government monopoly owned chain of liquor stores, the LCBO (A sophisticated operation which is the largest seller of wine and distilled spirits in the world). But instead of just adding a cannabis section to the hundreds of existing LCBO stores, the Ontario government will go out of its way to create 150 all new "cannabis only" stores. And these won't be connoisseur focused stores. They'll just be weed shops selling mids.

The government of Ontario initially announced 4 such stores. FOUR in a province with 13 million people and that is *much* larger than the entire state of Texas. 40 were promised to be open by the time legalization is ready to go, and that will be increased to 150 over the next two years. Otherwise, it's online shopping. You can mail order your weed, and if you don't like that? Too fucking bad.

One store is announced in Toronto. This is the 4th largest city in North America. The GTA has population of 6.5 million people. ONE STORE is initially announced. It's located in a run down strip mall, well off of the subway line. Wouldn't want to make it too easy for your people to get to. That might normalize it, you see.

Ontario decides its cannabis stores must not show cannabis to anybody from the outside. The public must not see cannabis through a window, even if they enter the store from the street. In each store there will be a lobby where people are screened before they enter. You cannot see the product for sale within the lobby. That would be vulgar.

And when you enter, customers will be "guided" by one on one staff to walk them through the options and ensure that they get the best mids (or worse) product appropriate for their "experience level". Yes. I am dead serious. I wish I wasn't, but I am. No edibles available for the first year, either.

This Ontario store model is adopted in 3 other provinces, because following Ontario in all things is generally what the Maritime provinces always do, 9 times out of ten.

New Brunswick's stores all all leased, fixtured and ready to have their shelves stocked; they are ready to go. Nova Scotia and PEI are not quite as far along, but will be similarly situated by August.

Ontario? Complete disaster. DOZENS of stores not yet even leased, let alone fixtured and staffed. It's a clusterfuck of unpreparedness. Total disaster.

Quebec is worse. FAR worse. By design. The people of Quebec are slightly less enthusiastic about legalization than the rest of Canada (but are still a solid majority of its population). Never mind that, the political class of Quebec has decided legalization is bad and they don't want it. Quebec will open only 20 stores. Twenty, for the whole province. Look on your map. Do you see how BIG that fucking area of land is? Quebec is larger than most countries in Europe.

And despite the fact that they KNOW they have no constitutional authority to ban home growing, Quebec doesn't care: they pass legislation to ban it anyway. They'll do it to be pissy and prove a political point -- all while blaming Ottawa.

They are joined in this sore-loser ban on home growing by Manitoba, the government of which is Conservative and is opposed to legalization for ideological reasons. They will be challenged in court by individuals and are certain to lose, as the regulation of private conduct in a private residential dwelling is the sine qua non of the criminal power -- which provinces don't have jurisdiction to regulate -- but the Prohibitionists will not go down without a fight.

The Largest Clusterfuck of All

And here's the kicker in all of this: there won't even be REMOTELY enough legal weed to sell on October 17, 2018. This is an opening order for a mass market consumer product where there is huge, pre-existing market demand for that mass consumer product. And the people who actually know how to grow and supply it are the ones who have largely (though not entirely) been cut out of the new system.

This has been attempted a grand total of ZERO TIMES in human history. No mass market consumer product in The History of Ever has been introduced this way into a marketplace. Never. Not with razors, not with beer, not with chocolate bars. Never. Ever.

And the corporate growers and their smaller, feeder licensed growers have been rooting clones madly all week (and in some cases, for months). Still, there is no way, no fucking way at all, that they can get a crop grown, harvested, trimmed and cured in time for October 17, 2018. Not even if the Ganja Fairy shows up and blesses every hydro warehouse in the country will that EVER happen. Not a chance.

And when you are Justin Trudeau and aren't responsible for how the legal product is actually rolled out? You smile and blame the provinces for fucking it up. And he will do so -- and he will be right to do so, too.

Worse, because demand is expected to be so high, the initial blast of dope demand will exhaust the then existing supply, plunging the legal market into a shortage. Cannabis stores will look like film sets for How The Grinch Stole Weed by October 24, 2018. Within a week, (if it takes that long), all the legal weed will be gone. Bare shelves and exposed wires. With new shipments months away; months.

It will sort itself out in time, to be sure. But the first year? It will be a massive clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Are we feeling all warm and fuzzy now about country wide legalization in Canada ?

Don't get me wrong. I am in favor of legalization and I fully supported C-45. I have even helped (some) at a producer business level. But I am fully aware that this thing will be completely fucked for a long time before it gets better. I am under no illusions otherwise.

That's the price of a progressive agenda.
 

armedoldhippy

Well-known member
Veteran
it is difficult for me to imagine that i will read a more humorous version of a story, and a tale so sordid as to sour milk, and both apparently true...:huggg:
 

JustSumTomatoes

Indicas make dreams happen
I can't help but smile at the fact that a countries biggest problem with weed will now be that there isn't enough legal weed to buy in a few months. You guys better fire up the grow rooms and help out some friends. :biggrin:
 

Cone Head

Member
I can't help but smile at the fact that a countries biggest problem with weed will now be that there isn't enough legal weed to buy in a few months. You guys better fire up the grow rooms and help out some friends. :biggrin:

I know right. Here in Australia, it remains.... very much illegal. Hopefully our politicians are watching.

We have decriminalisation in my state and it used to be set at 10 plants and receive a civil fine. Now its only 1 plant. What they used to do here in the 10 plant days, and it would work just as good with 4 plant limit you guys have was grow big haha. Indoors, huge pots, biggest you can get, coco and perlite mix, simple run to waste system. Grow under netting with as many 1000w MH as you dare to put in the room. Room full of foliage, look under the net, one pot and one fat trunk. You can grow loads off 4 plants, i'm officially jealous. Cant wait to see the legal grow threads on here :)
 

fatigues

Active member
Veteran
You can grow loads off 4 plants, i'm officially jealous. Cant wait to see the legal grow threads on here :)

Oh, most def. And remember, it's not decriminalized, it's legalized; for all purposes.

That means that Canadians will not be restricted to growing indoors. Next spring is going to be the busiest backyard gardening season this country ever did see. I just hope that these morons buy feminized seed, or the Pollen Uptick in ~August is going to be a serious problem. *sigh*

(They should not permit male seeds to be sold at retail in any Gov store. Hopefully, people won't be dumb enough to buy them if they are sold there. Bagseed is quite rare in Eastern Canada, at least.)

4 plants, outside, in a greenhouse? Oh yeah. If you don't screw that up, that should provide a hefty amount of personal bud, with more than enough for presents at Xmas, too. Which, it turns out, you are allowed to do. You can give an ounce of your stash away to a person without issue.

There will be a ridiculous number of 4 plant hobby grows here on ICM and elsewhere come October, 2018. Without putting too fine a point on it? Hobby growing by cannabis enthusiasts is one of the legs of this tripod that the Government of Canada is counting upon to do serious damage to black market commercial growers. In fact, giving the crappy products, poor consumer experience, high price, and generally fucked initial distribution problems, it's probably the only thing which will put much of a dent in growers' pocketbooks.

That's a new slant on "Overgrow", isn't it? Now the Government is trying to overgrow the growers. Not sure we saw that coming.
 

JustSumTomatoes

Indicas make dreams happen
Oh, most def. And remember, it's not decriminalized, it's legalized; for all purposes.

That means that Canadians will not be restricted to growing indoors. Next spring is going to be the busiest backyard gardening season this country ever did see. I just hope that these morons buy feminized seed, or the Pollen Uptick in ~August is going to be a serious problem. *sigh*

(They should not permit male seeds to be sold at retail in any Gov store. Hopefully, people won't be dumb enough to buy them if they are sold there. Bagseed is quite rare in Eastern Canada, at least.)

4 plants, outside, in a greenhouse? Oh yeah. If you don't screw that up, that should provide a hefty amount of personal bud, with more than enough for presents at Xmas, too. Which, it turns out, you are allowed to do. You can give an ounce of your stash away to a person without issue.

There will be a ridiculous number of 4 plant hobby grows here on ICM and elsewhere come October, 2018. Without putting too fine a point on it? Hobby growing by cannabis enthusiasts is one of the legs of this tripod that the Government of Canada is counting upon to do serious damage to black market commercial growers. In fact, giving the crappy products, poor consumer experience, high price, and generally fucked initial distribution problems, it's probably the only thing which will put much of a dent in growers' pocketbooks.

That's a new slant on "Overgrow", isn't it? Now the Government is trying to overgrow the growers. Not sure we saw that coming.

Good luck stopping the sale and growing of male plants. You just got legalization and not even a week later you want prohibition back? Haha just kidding, you guys have to be pretty excited about all this. I know I am and I don't even live in Canada. Don't you guys have pretty good size hemp farms already? I'm sure pollination is a problem you will just have to cope with growing outdoors in some areas. Just tell everyone in the neighborhood to pull their damn male plants in time lol.

And yes, the gov. is now trying to overgrow the growers lol. Talk about a plot twist!
 
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