In 54 published pages last week, a federal task force set out to demolish our history of demonization of those who use and produce cannabis. For a century, Parliament has been falteringly contending with the world’s most-used illicit drug, and by the time we are through our 150th birthday as a country, it looks like there will be a game plan.
Reefer Madness begets Reefer Business.
The task force picks up on an earlier federal discussion paper, which picked up on Justin Trudeau’s campaign pledge, which now leads to legislation next spring and legalization in 2018 or 2019.
Few in our community will be fully content with the report’s contents. But in setting the framework for regulated legalization, the overarching principle of minimizing harm also minimizes hard feelings.
The report’s meticulous writing succeeds in what it calls “scraping the ice” from the windshield so we can see the road ahead. But it’s a slippery road, and in a few areas we seem prepared to drive uphill without snow tires.
For instance, if we think cannabis is going to feed government’s coffers the way it feeds organized crime’s, think again.
The task force argues revenue will be carefully calibrated – not too much tax to let the bad guys stay in business, not too little to pay for administration, education and suppression. The higher the product makes you, the higher the tax, with limits on product potency.
The message for police: don’t turn a blind eye to illegality. For cities: you’ll get some resources so police do not turn a blind eye. For dispensaries: don’t locate near community centres, schools and, new and most notably, public parks.
The notion of a one-stop, self-soothing superstore doesn’t meet with the task force’s approval, particularly. It wants distinct operations where possible, although some smaller communities might have liquor/pot retail combos.
Lest there be any doubt, the product will be treated to marketing, advertising and labelling restrictions we now impose on tobacco. And there is encouraging language for First Nations entrepreneurs eager to produce the crop.
Minimum user age: your province’s drinking age, but if you want to slip your teenager a joint, there will be permitted “social sharing.”
For the business-minded: cannabis-infused craft beer? Forget it. Pot-laden tea in a pot? Uh-uh. Smoking lounges and tasting bars? Well, perhaps.
It is fair to say there is a little bit of a cart-before-the-horse feel to the exercise. Not for lack of trying, but it feels as if the infrastructure needed to launch a national industry – the fields, the factories, the labs, the research, the controls, the oversight – might not all arrive before the products hit the shelves.
For instance, it’s clear the science of linking the effects of alcohol on driving is clearer than the science of linking cannabis to driving. What that means is that we’re going to legalize a product without having an evidence-based understanding of how much to permit people to use so as to prevent anyone from endangering others while behind the wheel.
Even so, the task force didn’t walk away from the murky issue. It wants to establish a certain limit of the drug in our systems. But it’s a bit of a shot in the dark, and I have to suspect it will be contentious and litigious.
High in the workplace? The task force decided it was time to study, not to impose.
That being said, it also wants tough enforcement of illegal operations – indeed, two weeks ago in Toronto, the prime minister said it should be so now.
If existing Vancouver pot shops were setting up today, the task force recommendations would make even more of them illegal than has the city. Unlike Vancouver’s feeble, futile effort to deal with the bad squatters, the proposed provincial licensing and federal regulation would surely shutter a majority of the dispensaries that are today laughing all the way to the money launderer.
To those thugs, there is an obvious message in the report: the city may be impotent and indifferent, but as legitimate capital enters the fray, you are on borrowed time. •
Kirk LaPointe is Business in Vancouver’s vice-president of audience and business development.
