Unless I'm missing something, this this article did not give a single reason why it "will not be easy", aside from quoting the director of marijuana enforcement in Colorado saying: "It’s going to be a lot harder to implement than you think". Otherwise, the article is just a description of the current landscape in the marijuana industry of Canada before legalization.
It doesn't sound like it will be all that hard either. The gist of the argument seems to be a statement from someone with a potential axe to grind:
“It’s going to be a lot harder to implement than you think,” said Lewis Koski, until recently the director of marijuana enforcement in Colorado, to a Canadian news agency.
He wants to play up the work he did here in Colorado. In fact, it all seemed to go pretty easily here. The biggest problem so far has been what to do with the excess tax revenue from weed sales.
We have more pot shops in Vancouver BC than I can count. Sure, they may not be entirely legal yet on the federal level, but I'm sure the wheels of government will unstick a bit when they realize how much money is coming their way in the form of taxes. Especially when it doesn't mean defunding other programs or initiatives. This is entirely new funding that will otherwise go to the black market.
1. You need a license to sell it. Licenses are free. Go get one, get one for all your friends.
2. Don't sell it to kids.
3. If you broke rule 2, your license goes away and you can't have another unless you pay a very expensive deposit and get closely supervised for several years, at your expense. Don't break rule 2.
I think there's a benefit to allowing a liberal allowance of licenses but a fee regime in place to attain one.
In Colorado, you can just give or trade cannabis in its various forms. Selling it requires some bona fides and a legitimatized operation but that's just another small-business opportunity added to the local jurisdiction. The tax benefits are outrageous as well, while still being cheaper than via the black-market if your are so inclined as to visit a legitimate retail operation. The only problem with Colorado is a historically problematic amendment to the state constitution requiring tax surpluses to be "returned" to the citizens, which is an artifact of a particularly troublesome period of zany (some would say completely insane) libertarianism in Colorado's history.
Then getting banned is no big deal. Have your friends, family, CL buddies, etc. setup in the same place.
I'm all for total legalization of essentially every medicine. Just with strong regulation, because pharma dealers haven't shown a whole lot of internal integrity on their own. (And perhaps strong waivers, waiting periods, or mandatory understanding tests for buyers of certain meds, like pentobarbital.)
Pot's just a plant, but so are poppies. Extracts, harmful growing practices, combinations (think of all the "MDMA" laced with shit) and whatever else should be monitored, controlled, and vendors should have significant time/money at risk. Someone taking a large multiple of the dose they thought they were getting can be pretty harmful, even if it doesn't physically damage them.
Maybe the Vancouver pot shops aren't fully legal, but the police and judges have a pact to not do anything about them. No one will get arrested for possession in Vancouver. You can literally sit outside a police station and smoke a joint.
And ya, you need a prescription from a doctor, but hey, there's a doctor upstairs, follow me...
This kind of "de facto legal" thing really bothers me, because that really just says you are concentrating more arbitrary power in the hands of the justice system.
For me, it's not legal until you can do it while calling a cop an asshole.
People say this. Steve Yegge wrote a whole blog entry about it in 2009[1]. It's supposed to be so difficult to legalise something, but really it's not legalising it which is difficult but half-legalising it which is. Let's take Steve's blog questions:
> Is it legal to drink alcohol in a TV commercial? No? OK, what about marijuana, then? Can you smoke it in a commercial? Can you SHOW it? Can you talk about it? Can you show marijuana smoke at a party, without anyone actually being seen smoking it? Can you recommend its use to children under the age of 9? What exactly are the laws going to be around advertising and marijuana?
None. Why should there be? Done.
> Do we let everyone out of prison who was incarcerated for possession and/or sale of marijuana? If not, then what do we tell them when they start rioting? If so, what do we do with them? Do we subsidize halfway houses? Do we give them their pot back? How much pot, exactly, do they need to have possessed in order to effect their judicial reversal and subsequent amnesty? A bud? An ounce? A cargo ship full?
Release them. They broke the (unjust) law as it then stood, so they don't get reparations. Done.
> Is it legal to sell, or just possess? If the latter, then how do we integrate the illegality of selling it into the advertising campaigns that tell us it's legal to own it?
Of course it's legal to sell. What business of the State is it if one citizen wishes to sell something to another citizen? Done.
> If it's legal to sell it, WHO can sell it? Who can they sell it to? Where can they sell it? Where can they purchase it? Are we simply going to relax all the border laws, all the policies, all the local, state and federal laws and statutes that govern how we prioritize policing it? All at once? Is there a grandfather clause? On what _exact_ date, GMT, does it become legal, and what happens to pending litigation at that time?
Anyone can sell it, starting at midnight. All charges for selling it are dismissed at the same time (c.f. re. prisoners, supra). Done.
> Are we going to license it? Like state alcohol liquor licenses, of which there are a fixed number? What department does the licensing? How do you regulate it? Who inspects the premises looking for license violations, and how often? What, exactly, are they looking for?
Why license the sale of something? If someone wants to sell something, and someone wants to buy it, why interfere? If someone says he is selling marijuana, and is actually selling oregano, that sounds like fraud to me: there are civil and criminal courts which can then be involved. Done.
> Is it OK to smoke marijuana at home? At work? In a restaurant? In a designated Pot Bar? On the street? Can you pull out a seventeen-foot-long water bong and take a big hit in the middle of a shopping mall, and ask everyone near you to take a hit with you, since it's totally awesome skunkweed that you, like, can't get in the local vending machine? If it's not OK, then why not?
What business of the State is it if you wish to permit smoking in your home or business, or on your property? On public property, why would not the laws against assaulting people in general not apply? Done.
> Can you drive when you're stoned? What's the legal blood-THC level? Is it state-regulated or federal-regulated? For that matter, what is the jurisdiction for ALL marijuana-related laws? Can states override federal rulings? Provinces? Counties? Cities? Homeowners associations?
This is the only even slightly bothersome part. Fortunately, we have a system for determining whether someone is guilty of driving intoxicated: it's called a jury trial. Done.
> What exactly is the Coast Guard supposed to do now? Can illegal drug smugglers just land and start selling on the docks? Are consumers supposed to buy their marijuana on the street? What happens to the existing supply-chain operations? How are they taxed? Who oversees it?
The DEA and friends can get honest jobs. Why would marijuana be taxed any differently from anything else? Done.
> Can you smoke marijuana on airplanes? Can airplanes offer it to their customers in-flight? Is it regulated in-flight more like tobacco (don't get the smoke in other peoples' faces) or alcohol (imbibe as you will, as long as you don't "appear intoxicated"?) What about marijuana brownies? Are you allowed to eat it in areas where you're not allowed to smoke it?
If a private business wishes to permit its customers to consume something on its premises, why does the State have to get involved? Done.
> Can an airplane captain smoke pot? A ship captain? A train conductor? The driver of a car? An attendee at a Broadway musical? A politician in a legislative session? What is the comprehensive list of occupations, positions and scenarios in which smoking pot is legal? What about eating pot? What about holding it? What about holding a pot plant? What about the seeds?
This is just the intoxication question again, and again there is already a system in place. Done.
> Speaking of the seeds, are there different laws governing distribution, sale and possession of seeds vs. plants vs. buds vs. joints? If so, why? If not, why not?
Why should there be? Get out of the petty-tyranny business and get on with life. Done.
> What laws govern the transportation of marijuana in any form into or out of countries where it is still illegal? What policies are states able to enact? Is it OK under any circumstances for a person to go to jail over the possession or use of marijuana? If so, what are those circumstances?
What business of a State are another State's laws? Why should marijuana be any different from any other intoxicating substance at all? Done.
> Are there any laws governing the use of marijuana by atheletes? U.S. military personnel? Government employees? Government contractors? U.S. ambassadors, in title or in spirit? What are our extradition laws? What do we do about citizens who are subject to the death penalty in countries like Singapore for the possession of sufficient quantities of what we now consider to be legal substances?
Why would the State care about what athletes or other citizens do? Why wouldn't rules already in place, which boil down to 'don't make us look bad,' not apply?
As for citizens being held by other countries: imprisonment or execution of a citizen for an act not criminal in his own country may invite invasion. 'Civi Romani sum.' Done.
> What about derivatives? Are the laws the same for hashish? How do we tell the difference? What if someone engineers a super-powerful plant? How do the new laws extend to a potential spectrum of new drugs similar to THC?
Why does the State have to grasp for every bit of power? Just let it go! Done.
> For driving and operating machinery, do we have legal definitions that are equivalent of blood-alcohol percentage, and if so, what are these definitions? How do we establish them? How do we figure out what is actually dangerous? How do we test for these levels? When they are established, do we we put up signs on all roadways? Do we update the Driver's Education materials? How do we communicate this change to the public?
This is the same intoxication question, again. For the third time: done.
> How does legalization impact our public health education programs? Do they have to immediately retract all campaigning, advertising and distributed literature that mentions marijuana? How does legalization interact with the "Say no to drugs" programs? Do we need extra education to differentiate between a drug that is now legal (but wasn't before) and drugs that are still illegal? What's our story here? What about other drugs that are even less addictive and/or less intrusive than marijuana?
If it's harmful, what is the problem in continuing to say it's harmful? If it's not, why was public health education lying? This is a non-objection. Done.
> Monsanto is eventually going to sue the living shit out of someone for using genetically-engineered pot seeds. Can they sue individuals with a single plant in their windowsill? (answer: yes) Will Oprah step in and help that beleaguered individual? (answer: we'll see!)
Why should it be any different than any other seed. Done.
Yes, it's hard to retain some control while giving up some control. Why do that? It's really not that big a deal, if a State is willing to be an adult and to treat its citizens like adults (and as for children: it's their parents' job to see that they behave according to their parents' desires, not the State's, according to its own). Just let go!
> If a private business wishes to permit its customers to consume something on its premises, why does the State have to get involved?
Smoking is banned in restaurants because it's harmful to the waitstaff. The State should be involved for the same reason that it's involved in any other labor law.
> Smoking is banned in restaurants because it's harmful to the waitstaff.
I wasn't aware that waiters are enslaved. Of course, if they have a free choice to choose to work in a restaurant which allows smoking or not … that's their free choice.
And the pseudoscience behind so-called 'secondhand smoke' is thoroughly discredited. Anti-smoking bigotry is just that: prejudiced, emotional, unthinking bigotry. But it's socially acceptable bigotry. Folks gotta have their two minutes' hate!
These are nice thoughts, but you're brutally oversimplifying a lot of things.
> (re: advertising laws) None. Why should there be? Done.
Well, we have them around alcohol - and around tons of other things - mostly so people can't do things like advertise cigarettes on kids' shows, etc. And there definitely should be - I'm perfectly happy that cigarettes have to have health warnings attached, and I think marijuana should too.
> Release them. They broke the (unjust) law as it then stood, so they don't get reparations. Done.
Nice thought. Completely unworkable in practice. There's a lot of logistics involved in releasing at least six thousand prisoners [1] at once.
> Of course it's legal to sell. What business of the State is it if one citizen wishes to sell something to another citizen? Done.
Is heroin legal to sell? What about military-grade weapons technology? Customers' private data? Lots of things are illegal to sell, for good reason.
> If a private business wishes to permit its customers to consume something on its premises, why does the State have to get involved? Done.
For the same reason the State has to get involved and mandate no-smoking zones (though I'll admit those are controversial and frequently challenged).
> This is just the intoxication question again, and again there is already a system in place. Done.
There's not 'already a system in place' - there are different systems for cigs, booze, T3s, Adderall, and Lord knows how many more. I get that it seems simple, but the devil is in the details, especially with this one.
> What business of a State are another State's laws? Why should marijuana be any different from any other intoxicating substance at all? Done.
Well, it doesn't matter what each individual state's laws are, sure - but all of them will need to decide on laws, which is a massive undertaking.
> Why does the State have to grasp for every bit of power? Just let it go! Done.
So if something comes round that's basically pot, but also sometimes causes instant death in people who take it, we should allow its sellers to operate under our marijuana legislation? And how do you even know if it's 'pot enough' to qualify for marijuana legislation?
> Why should it be any different than any other seed. Done.
This ignores the fact that other seeds took shitloads of work to legislate [2]. And it's still an active debate.
I mean, overall, I agree with your sentiment - we're not helping anyone by leaving it in this gray area. But saying it'll be easy is willfully ignorant.
I think the real issue here is the idea that we need to check each and every one of these boxes before pot is legal. We didn't make sure to check each and every box, and think up contingencies for each and every situation that could ever happen before we allowed alcohol and cigarettes to be sold to the general populous.
> So if something comes round that's basically pot, but also sometimes causes instant death in people who take it, we should allow its sellers to operate under our marijuana legislation? And how do you even know if it's 'pot enough' to qualify for marijuana legislation?
e-cigs, vaping, etc. The same thing comes up with cigarette-derivatives, yet we don't ban cigarettes (and throw all cigarette users in jail) until there are laws in place covering all contingencies.
> We didn't make sure to check each and every box, and think up contingencies for each and every situation that could ever happen before we allowed alcohol and cigarettes to be sold to the general populous [sic].
Heck, we didn't originally allow alcohol and cigarettes to be sold: they just were. In the state of nature, any free man is free to sell whatever he wants to any other free man. Is that really such a bad situation? Why do people expend so much effort in regulating and outlawing?
> > (re: advertising laws) None. Why should there be? Done.
> Well, we have them around alcohol - and around tons of other things - mostly so people can't do things like advertise cigarettes on kids' shows, etc.
Surely it's parents' responsibility what their children watch? Some parents don't want their children to see pink-princess adverts; should those be banned too?
> Is heroin legal to sell? What about military-grade weapons technology?
Both should be, yes.
> Customers' private data?
That's a matter for private contracts.
> There's not 'already a system in place' - there are different systems for cigs, booze, T3s, Adderall, and Lord knows how many more. I get that it seems simple, but the devil is in the details, especially with this one.
That's the beauty of the jury system: 'ladies and gentlemen of approximately the same social class and status of the defendant, these witnesses state that he was intoxicated, for these reasons and with this evidence. How decide you?'
> And how do you even know if it's 'pot enough' to qualify for marijuana legislation?
Why do you need legislation? The default state of things is for them to be legal: there's no law allowing my colleagues to bring food into the office to celebrate Christmas; there's no law allowing my to purchase trousers; there's no law in place permitting you to drink water; why should marijuana, heroin or hand grenades be any different? Just let it go!
> This ignores the fact that other seeds took shitloads of work to legislate.
And yet somehow life before the Canadian seed regulations still went on. Maybe they improve things (maybe). But maybe it's just busywork for politicians which enables busywork and patronage for civil servants and regulatory capture by industry.
> There's a lot of logistics involved in releasing at least six thousand prisoners [1] at once.
So stagger the releases by compressing their remaining sentence from n years into n weeks, truncating at a sensible maximum. And in the meantime unlock their jail cells, permit food delivery, and let them chill.
They could do worse than read this document: After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation (which talks about properly regulating all drugs, but covers cannabis).
We demonstrate that legal regulation is not an unthinkable, politically impossible step in the dark, but a sensible, pragmatic approach to control drug production, supply and use.
The blueprint seems to imply that anything less than the regulation thresholds for pharmaceutical drugs is tantamount to "unfettered free market anarchy". I'm not sure if this is a political strategy to appease prohibitionists, but the statements that such an "unregulated" environment would be a worse outcome than prohibition strikes me as paternalism that is debunked by most of human history of drug consumption.
It's only "difficult" for cranky authoritarians. Seriously. You have to have a twisted mind to spend the energy to imagine the worthless worries involved.
I think that would be the most reasonable course of action in the short term.
Getting smoke in your lungs carries all sorts of health risks, regardless of whether it's from tobacco, cannabis, or plain old wood in your fireplace. Joints should be labeled with grisly pictures of lung cancer just like cigarettes, and taxed to compensate for the burden on Canada's public health system.
But smoking is only one way of consuming cannabis, and I don't think tobacco regulations are well suited to marijuana cookies, for example.
