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With Canada legalizing cannabis tomorrow, there is a lot to celebrate as it marks an end to Canada’s cannabis prohibition regime that began almost 100 years ago, but it’s not all fun and games- in many ways Oct. 17 marks the beginning of Prohibition 2.0.
There have been many, many fails during this whole legalization process, and CLN covered a few of those in an earlier article. It’s been a very long and bumpy road just getting to this point, and when you can still face up to 14 years in jail over cannabis, we’ve still got a long, long way to go.
Here are 3 more of Canada’s biggest legalization fails, so far.
Fail 1: No edibles
While smoking a joint is one of the most iconic and common methods of consuming cannabis, there are health concerns over the effects of inhaling cannabis smoke. Edibles offer a safer and healthier way to utilize the effects and benefits of cannabis because there is no smoking involved since you eat it, which makes it so much easier on your lungs. There are many people who would prefer edibles because of this.
As Dana Larsen, one of Canada’s most prominent cannabis activists, previously told CLN in an interview:
“Although [cannabis] buds have a lot of medicinal value, the real medicinal value of cannabis lies in extracts, capsules, edibles, suppositories, and those kinds of products.”
Too bad edibles and all those other products will still be illegal in Canada, even after Oct. 17 because only certain CBD products and smokeable flowers are being legalized, making this a huge fail for so-called legalization.
While the government has promised to start looking into legalizing edibles sometime in 2019, if you look at how long it took the severely out-of-touch government to legalize cannabis flower, it doesn’t inspire much hope at all. Who can forget Sen. Nicole Eaton, who infamously said that “5 grams is about 4 tokes” (which honestly could count as a separate fail unto itself)?
As much as the government says their approach to legalization is about public health, it has stalled on arguably the healthiest method of consuming
Fail 2: 14 years in jail over a “legal” substance?!
This helpful chart prepared by Trina Fraser, a partner at Brazeau Seller Law, was based on the first reading version of the Cannabis Act.
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As you can see, in addition to fines that range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands, you risk up to 14 years in jail for certain offences! Now is that really what you expected when Trudeau said he’d legalize cannabis in Canada?
Michael Bryant, a lawyer, former politician, and current executive director for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, wrote an excellent article about how Bill C-45 essentially recriminalizes cannabis, where he calls out, among other things, Canada’s insanely harsh sentences, sa“There are new, more punitive and wholly disproportionate maximum sentences for running afoul of BillC45. I know of no 14 year prison sentence arising from distribution of Smirnoff, let alone orchids.”
Fail 3: Canada’s licensed producer system
Many of these licensed producers are being run by former government insiders and cops who profited off of Prohibition and ruined countless lives in the process. Now that legalization is around the corner, they’re jumping into the cannabis industry and snatching up all those lucrative cannabis supply contracts (no doubt leveraging their cozy relationships with those in power) while doing everything they can to continue criminalizing the real growers and cannabis producers who have been doing this in Canada for decades.
You know, like the growers that put BC Bud on the map in the first place. But perhaps the LP’s are all rightfully worried about what this competition will do to their bottom lines as the OG growers actually know what they’re doing with skills built and passed down over generations.
LP’s haven’t been growing for very long at all and you can often tell from the irradiated, bunk weed they often produce. This is an example of crony capitalism in its purest form.
Crony capitalism: an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class.
Lawyer Michael Bryant, in his previously mentioned article, also called out the legal regime and the stinking hypocrisy of the cops and politicians who criminalized hundreds of thousands of Canadians for over a century who are now suddenly launching their own cannabis companies in the hopes of making a quick buck.
“Be that as it may, legalization has launched a beautiful friendship between cannabis capitalism, retired police captains, and government treasuries….
Ex-cons and addicts find no relief in this bill, which rewards heretofore opponents of legalization with riches piled upon their taxpayer pensions, but nothing, nothing, nothing by way of new legal or economic opportunities for those punished by cannabis prohibition to date.”
And as much as these Prohibitionists may claim they’ve had a change of heart because they’ve seen the medical benefits of cannabis first-hand, how many of them do you think are calling for cannabis amnesty for those whose lives they ruined?
Source: https://cannabislifenetwork.com/3-more-cannabis-legalization-fails-in-canada-so-far/
RMS
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^^^^lol unfortunetly it would of been better if NDP got it going but eh cannabis is almost legal. butI feel 5-10 years things will defacto really open up to be decriminalized ie nothing anyone can do with cannabis can be jailed period.
This is Canada. It's a country with rules and regulations. That's how we roll up here. With everything. We regulate amateur house league hockey, FFS.
The problem here is you see regulations as a necessity.
Decriminalization served only the interests of the black market. And it didn't happen. We skipped right over that. We knew whose interests that really served; it wasn't that of average Canadians.
And you are good with that?
It would have served a lot more than just the black market, you are not well informed.
So you can be self-interested if you like. I'm happy with a legalized and regulated market, thank-you-very-much.
"True colors"?
You seem out for you not what is best for all.
Dude - I'm not hiding anything. I'm not in it for the money. This is not my job; it's my hobby.
I did not say you were hiding anything.
No one said we thought it was your job.
No one said you were in it for the money.
I generally don't support tariffs to protect industry, but now I should support people going to a penitentiary in some loser lottery, as long as it allows for the others who don't lose out on that lottery to make a comfortable living off of it?
Nope.
There's no hidden agenda here. At all.
narrow self-interest
This sounds a lot like the pot calling the kettle black to me.
You are not in the know if you think you can smoke weed on the public streets and not get arrested.
Try smokin a doob while walking into a police station with some hash and a pack of seeds in your hand.
No worries right? You will not go to jail, after all it is legal right?
Report back when you finish the test.
Speaking of being not informed:
You must have missed the news where LP's were guilty of spraying poison on their weed.
Do yourself a favor and get all the info before claiming how great things are.
^^^I missed the post where you thanked @fatigues for correcting all your misconceptions.