Canada is leading in personal freedoms and new markets with this move, ending cannabis prohibition that is long overdue and a step in ending the drug wars.
The policy change regarding viewing drugs not as criminal but decriminalized and a health issue where needed, is the safer thing to do in a regulated market that will improve safety for recreational use and harm reduction. The War on Drugs started as an attack on personal freedoms and made drugs more dangerous both in production and use, spawning all sorts of synthetics that are more dangerous and black market mafia forces spawning violence just like during alcohol prohibition.
Maybe in 2019 the US can be next as a whole ending cannabis prohibition, about 50 years after the kickoff of Nixon's drug wars due to losing to Leary in the SCOTUS over the Marihuana Tax Act [1]
> Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 (1969), is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary, a professor and activist, was arrested for the possession of marijuana in violation of the Marihuana Tax Act. Leary challenged the act on the ground that the act required self-incrimination, which violated the Fifth Amendment. The unanimous opinion of the court was penned by Justice John Marshall Harlan II and declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional. Thus, Leary's conviction was overturned. Congress responded shortly thereafter by replacing the Marihuana Tax Act with the newly written Controlled Substances Act while continuing the prohibition of certain drugs in the United States
Unfortunately, it is too bad leading states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and more aren't able to capitalize on the markets until the US as a whole federally ends prohibition. US states that are forward looking are cut off from banking, interstate commerce, global investment and are being held back by the anti-market approach of the current prohibitions.
Canada stepped up to first mover globally for cannabis which will lead to a chance at global cannabis companies being Canadian.
>Canada is leading in personal freedoms and new markets with this move, ending cannabis prohibition that is long overdue and a step in ending the drug wars.
To an extent, yes. With regard to those new markets, though, most provinces are taking the monopoly route. So while production will be in private hands, distribution and in some cases even retail will be done by provincial government monopolies.
To illustrate how the market has been strangled in this regard, there are no physical stores open within several hours' drive of where I am, despite it being a fairly large (for Canada) metro area. My province (Quebec) has a dozen stores open today, that's it. Online sales exist, but there is a legitimate discussion over whether or not anyone would want a digital trail of their pot purchases, with the SQDC's name set to show up on your credit card statement (potentially accessible by the US border agents, for instance) when you order.
Also because every city gets to set their own consumption bylaws, many people who rent have nowhere to legally smoke it. eg: Calgary - public smoking is banned. You're allowed to smoke it in your own house. Except most rental companies have banned smoking on rental property (inside or outside). So the only way to smoke legally could get you evicted.
Canada could be a leader in the global cannabis market — if the rules loosen up: experts
"“We’re currently shipping cannabis to several of these countries already. We’re already taking advantage of this opportunity,” he explained, citing Europe as a current client for several major Canadian marijuana growers."
Bizarrely, the UK is the world's largest legal exporter. (Canada is second.) The managing director of the exporter, British Sugar, is married to the government's drugs minister. It's very cosy.
The Canadian government started publishing the production and export numbers for licences medical producers at the end of 2017 [0]. Looks like the total amount exported is a few hundred kilograms of dried canabis and a few dozen liters of cannabis oil per month.
That is the most absurd thing I've heard in a while. I grew up in Canada and live in California right now. In general, I feel speaking freely anywhere in Canada than I do in the US. Leave the country and go visit somewhere for a change.
What's your source on this? Free speech is enshrined as a "fundamental freedom" in the Charter. There are reasonable limits as well, to ensure that things like hate speech are deemed illegal.
I've met a number of people (all American, so I infer it's due to some American news sources) that believe Canadians are arrested on a regular basis for flimsy and arbitrary claims of hate speech, and those arrests are political. The same people tend to believe we wait six months and probably die before getting cancer treatment because of our socialized medical system.
So chalk it up to Canada being used in the partisan ratings war that seems to dominate news nowadays.
I don’t know, maybe lots? What I hear from my chosen news sources matches my experience (or feeds my confirmation bias), so I don’t recognize it as lies.
You can chalk it up to Jordan Peterson and his fanboys insisting that white men are the most oppressed group in this upside down new world we live in. That segment really likes to paint Canada as the thought-police boogie man.
Er, engaging in the oppression olympics is the opposite of what he does.
His argument is that people should be judged as individuals, not by what group they randomly happen to be part of.
Peterson advocates for free speech and MLK's dream: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Jordan Peterson absolutely and completely does not "insist", insinuate, or suggest that "white men are the most oppressed group". I am a really big fan of Dr. Peterson's work and I have never heard him say or publish anything remotely resembling such a statement. In fact, he is completely opposed to identity politics on the whole.
Some misguided white men might think that they are "the most oppressed group", but they are just that: misguided.
Canadian Human Rights Tribunals often produce concerning rulings regarding free speech [1]. I found this case to be particularly concerning even if the "jokes" in question were distasteful. Reminds me of the "Nazi Pug" in the UK [2] which was equally alarming.
A somewhat entertaining one is that a business in Quebec cannot have an English-only sign on their business; the sign must have French, and French must be more prominent than English[1]. Zooming out a little bit to the Canadian Charter, there's two significant pieces that are relevant:
- the limitations clause: "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
- the notwithstanding clause: (too long to paste but here's Wikipeida's summary): "The Parliament of Canada, a provincial legislature or a territorial legislature may declare that one of its laws or part of a law applies temporarily ("notwithstanding") countermanding sections of the Charter, thereby nullifying any judicial review by overriding the Charter protections for a limited period of time"[2]
Basically, we have "freedom of speech", but it's not an absolute right, it's limited by "reasonable limits" (as decided by the courts). Further, even if the courts decide that some kind of provincial law violates the charter, the province can invoke the Notwithstanding Clause and continue enforcing the law. I'd argue that, in general, this all works out pretty well, but it's not really that strong of protection relative to the American Constitution.
The policy change regarding viewing drugs not as criminal but decriminalized and a health issue where needed, is the safer thing to do in a regulated market that will improve safety for recreational use and harm reduction. The War on Drugs started as an attack on personal freedoms and made drugs more dangerous both in production and use, spawning all sorts of synthetics that are more dangerous and black market mafia forces spawning violence just like during alcohol prohibition.
Maybe in 2019 the US can be next as a whole ending cannabis prohibition, about 50 years after the kickoff of Nixon's drug wars due to losing to Leary in the SCOTUS over the Marihuana Tax Act [1]
> Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 (1969), is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary, a professor and activist, was arrested for the possession of marijuana in violation of the Marihuana Tax Act. Leary challenged the act on the ground that the act required self-incrimination, which violated the Fifth Amendment. The unanimous opinion of the court was penned by Justice John Marshall Harlan II and declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional. Thus, Leary's conviction was overturned. Congress responded shortly thereafter by replacing the Marihuana Tax Act with the newly written Controlled Substances Act while continuing the prohibition of certain drugs in the United States
Unfortunately, it is too bad leading states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and more aren't able to capitalize on the markets until the US as a whole federally ends prohibition. US states that are forward looking are cut off from banking, interstate commerce, global investment and are being held back by the anti-market approach of the current prohibitions.
Canada stepped up to first mover globally for cannabis which will lead to a chance at global cannabis companies being Canadian.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States