Not fast but definitely furious
Nov 17, 2018
Officially, the Liberal Party wanted to legalize marijuana in order to remove the "criminal organizations, street gangs and gun-runners" associated with the drug, as Justin Trudeau put in a pithy bit of hyperbole during the 2015 election campaign. [...]
Yet while legalization has been a political victory for the Liberal government, the hasty rollout of the policy has been decidedly mixed, resulting in often-conflicting laws, massive supply chokepoints and comparatively high prices for what has been a relatively cheap, ubiquitous if illegal product for decades.
Why does the media portray the Canadian legalization of recreational marijuana as "rushed" or "hasty"? Trudeau won the election in October of 2015. The legalization occurred in October of 2018. Governments at all levels had three years to prepare for this event. The problem isn't that it was "rushed" or "hasty". The problem is that the governments have their tentacles in all aspects of the business.
- Production licenses, harvesting licenses, sales licenses. The government has been so slow that some producers have had to destroy part of their crops because they didn't have the license to harvest.
- Centralization of online sales. Ontario is the biggest culprit. All licensed producers (LPs) have to sent their packages to a warehouse in Mississauga from where the government mails the products to customers. Why!? The LPs have been mailing products to patients for years. They can simply mail it directly to new customers. Plus, that would allow them to get instant feedback on what's popular.
- Excise tax. That's on top of the 13% sales tax.
- No advertisements! The LPs can only advertise inside the retail stores. Genius!
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