Pubdate: Wed, 16 Dec 2015
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Michael Den Tandt
Page: C7

DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR LEGAL MARIJUANA

Trudeau Government Has Other Priorities Besides Pot Legalization

OK, I'll say it: What was she smoking?

Except that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's vision of a state-run 
monopoly on the fragrant weed, courtesy of the Liquor Control Board 
of Ontario, is quite plausible, given the logic of imminent 
legalization. What becomes readily apparent, as the federal Liberals 
continue to find their footing, is that the idea of legalization of 
marijuana has never been deeply examined.

Legalization was a terrific attention-getter in 2013, and a powerful 
emblem of change. That worked for Justin Trudeau two years ago. It 
highlighted his youth and cool. It made Stephen Harper and his 
sternly anti-pot front bench look like fussy old bores - Sister 
Matilda, waggling a disapproving finger at the rambunctious kids at 
the back of the bus.

But that was then. Scratch beneath the surface and the file is rife 
with complex problems - social, legal and political. Members of the 
snowboard-and-munchie set, consequently, may have to wait a bit 
before they can proudly present themselves, bong in hand, at their 
local liquor store, and order a gram of what we used to call the 
Polio, which removes one's ability to stand up.

Which is, of course, as good a place as any to begin. What 
self-respecting stoner would be caught dead buying marijuana in a 
state-owned store, with the government's blessing? At least half of 
pot's appeal, when I was a teenager, was its illegality. This was 
something one did furtively, off the books. It was a middle digit 
raised defiantly toward authority. The actual taste, not to mention 
the smell, I'm sure most people found appalling, and still do.

Marijuana use is, of course, more socially acceptable now than it was 
in the early 1980s. My sense though, from speaking about this to 
young people, is that counter-culture is still part of the cachet. 
Setting medicinal marijuana dispensaries to one side, therefore, it 
seems this future state-owned enterprise is ripe for bootlegging. 
Baby boomers of the Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix era may enjoy a 
subtle frisson as they watch their B.C. Bud get bagged alongside the 
evening's Pinot Noir. But it's difficult to see how teenagers - for 
whom pot acquisition was supposed to become more difficult, under a 
new regulatory regime - can be prevented from continuing to obtain it 
from wherever they do now.

Those sources, as the Liberals have correctly pointed out for years, 
are everywhere. The price of illegal pot cannot help but be well 
below the LCBO standard, due to the lack of taxation and, let's face 
it, the absence of public service wage rates and a benefit plan for 
grow op staff. All of this raises questions of enforcement, which 
itself will have a cost. State-sanctioned grow ops will in effect 
compete with mom-and-pop outfits operating off the books. Will there 
be criminal sanctions for bootleggers and, if so, what will those be?

And there's another aspect to this that is potentially far more 
problematic, as the state of Colorado has discovered. That is 
marijuana-impaired driving. Colorado began the process of 
legalization for medical use in 2006, and since 2013 has implemented 
full legalization. Data gathered by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity 
Drug Trafficking Area, established to monitor the effects of 
legalization, shows a dramatic increase in impaired driving due to 
marijuana. In 2014, according to a report released in September, the 
rise in pot-related road deaths was 32 per cent. From 2010 to 2014, 
the rise in marijuana-related traffic deaths was 92 per cent, 
compared with an eight per cent increase in all Colorado traffic 
fatalities over the same period.

The difficulty with pot and impaired driving, very simply, is that 
unlike drunk driving, there is no quick way to test for it. The 
determination usually occurs after the fact, with a blood sample. 
There's also no standard "dose" of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), after 
which a person can neatly be deemed impaired, because different 
people react to the drug in different ways. One person's catatonic 
slumber (I speak from past experience, here) might be another's mild buzz.

This raises the question of what's to prevent our aforementioned 
nostalgic boomers from sparking up a fatty in the Volvo in the LCBO 
parking lot, then driving home? More broadly: If smoking pot is legal 
but doing so before or while driving is not, how can this be 
enforced? Also, how will regulators establish the length of any 
post-puff "cooling-off " period, given the drug's residual effects 
last longer in some than in others?

In his mandate letter to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, Prime 
Minister Trudeau put legalizing marijuana sixth on the to-do list, 
well down from dealing with physician-assisted death, and convening 
an inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women. Overhauling 
criminal-justice sentencing is fourth on the list.

Each of those reforms, particularly the first two, will require 
intense focus and consume a great deal of political oxygen, and 
capital. Given this, and the sheer thorniness of marijuana 
legalization, it should be no surprise if this gets shoved to the 
back burner. Ganja liberalization activists: Best not hold your breath.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom