Pubdate: Wed, 30 Nov 2016
Source: Telegram, The (CN NF)
Copyright: 2016 The Telegram
Contact:  http://www.thetelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/303
Page: C4

POT TO TROT

It's a lot of fuss over a gram of "Green Lantern" marijuana and four
THC-containing extra-strength sativa gummy bunnies - two green, two
yellow. But a $25 purchase by The Telegram's James McLeod is certainly
making waves. It's a lot of fuss over a gram of "Green Lantern"
marijuana and four THC-containing extra-strength sativa gummy bunnies
- - two green, two yellow. But a $25 purchase by The Telegram's James
McLeod is certainly making waves.

McLeod bought the marijuana products at CannaLeaf Medical Dispensary,
a marijuana dispensary operating in plain sight on Water Street in
downtown St. John's.

A store - with a sign - like any other business. (What was unlike
other downtown businesses, perhaps, was the steady lineup out front.)

Meanwhile, in a different story in the same day's Telegram, four
people were arrested in a drug bust that included three kilograms of -
wait for it - marijuana.

Welcome to the strange, strange world of a product teetering right on
the line between legal and illegal.

Well, not really, but illegal today seems poised to become legal
tomorrow, or at least legal by this time next year. Meanwhile,
boundaries are being tested.

The federal government has indicated it plans to allow the sale of
marijuana; the campaign promise was clear: "We will legalize,
regulate, and restrict access to marijuana."

When? "We will introduce legislation in spring 2017 that ensures we
keep marijuana out of the hands of children and profits out of the
hands of criminals," according to federal Health Minister Jane Philpott.

The exact mechanism - and the legislation - isn't clear yet. Will the
government opt for privately run dispensaries, along the lines of
businesses like CannaLeaf? Or will it opt for provincially regulated
oversight - having marijuana piggybacked on the existing provincial
liquor store model, perhaps in the same stores? And what will the
rules be around growing your own, for example?

The marijuana market clearly isn't waiting to see. Shops like
CannaLeaf are a growth industry already, regardless of the state of
the law, and the question is how they will be treated.

Plenty of people have already pointed out it's preferable to have
marijuana sold at a store instead of from a corner dealer. You
presumably know what you're getting and, eventually, the sale will
garner the same sorts of business and other taxes that other products
deliver to government coffers. The corner weed store - if that's the
direction the federal government takes - presumably won't be offering
harder drugs for a better high, and won't be treating marijuana to
give it an extra chemical kick.

But we're not there yet, and there's a big difference between a
political promise and a change in the law.

After all, in August 1917, the Canadian government introduced "An Act
to authorize the levying of a War Tax upon certain incomes," also
known as our first federal income tax. It was called a war tax because
the suggestion was that it would be temporary, and only be needed to
pay for costs from the First World War.

Look how well that went.
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MAP posted-by: Matt