Haven't posted here in a while, but couldn't find anywhere else to post about Canadian legalization, surprisingly few forums around on it. So anyway a few things that I found recently may be worth sharing so others can use it somehow to get the laws made more fair than currently planned.
Firstly, a recent Supreme Court case ruled that Provinces can control the flow of liquor, and therefore other goods, in and out of their borders, or something to that effect
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-supreme-court-upholds-law-in-cross-border-alcohol-case/. So how can the big LPs like Canopy keep marketing nationwide like they are now?
There may be ways around that but my second point is that to grow tobacco you don't need any kind of federal license or permit. In fact in the page for Ontario it's not even a permit or license, just "registration" and it's free
https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/tax/tt/rawleafproducers.html You just need to be able to show that you have a buyer already set up for your proposed crop. The legal weed policy doesn't even require that. You can just produce a big stockpile of weed and then try to push it. You can grow weed on "spec". Also tobacco producers have quotas. They can only produce the average of what they produced for the last three years. Where's the quota on Canopy?
So you can see that there are a lot of inconsistencies between the proposed Cannabis regs and existing tobacco regs, which is a comparable product while liquor is not. Liquor is not a direct agricultural product, it's a secondary product, like making biofuel from corn. You could actually make liquor without even using plant material, just synthetic ethanol, flavors and colors. Likening Cannabis to liquor is just a way to make the regs harsher than appropriate. There is really no similarity, aside from both having an effect on consciousness. Completely different modes of action. I don't know of anyone who couldn't remember what they did while on Cannabis the night before, pretty strong difference right there.
No, the Libs will have to either make tobacco regs a whole lot stronger or make a lot of amendments to the proposed Cannabis legislation, because right now the inequality is appalling. BTW it's also a little odd that tobacco growers don't need to use only seeds provided by the Government or have security guards or a scientist on staff. The stuff Trudeau will try to do to help his rich friends corner the market, huh?
I won't be responding to any replies, just wanted to post the information to give others some stuff to think about before the big shafting of Cannabis growers, making it technically legal but the regs so inappropriately onerous that nobody but richies could ever afford it.
