{"id":38148,"date":"2017-04-15T04:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-04-15T08:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38148"},"modified":"2017-10-20T13:59:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T17:59:53","slug":"federal-marijuana-bill-is-about-as-good-a-framework-as-we-had-any-right-to-expect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/04\/15\/federal-marijuana-bill-is-about-as-good-a-framework-as-we-had-any-right-to-expect\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal marijuana bill “is about as good a framework as we had any right to expect”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley<\/a> looks at the Trudeau government’s marijuana legalization framework, as revealed on Thursday:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The fact is, though, this is about as good a framework as we had any right to expect from the Canadian government. The feds will insist upon a safe and controlled supply chain, with licenses and inspections; you may keep four plants at home \u2014 an indulgence I would have bet against; promotional materials will be severely restricted in much the same way as for tobacco; the minimum age will be 18; and the maximum limit on the amount of dried flower you can carry around in public will be 30 grams \u2014 same as it is in Washington state and Colorado.<\/p>\n

Retail and all the questions that go with it are the provinces\u2019 problem, just as they should be. (In theory, a buzz-kill province could set the legal age at 105 and the public possession limit at zero, though the government says mail order would be available in provinces that don\u2019t have a retail sector.)<\/p>\n

The feds will balance out all this wanton permissiveness with tough talk of putting \u201corganized crime\u201d out of business and protecting our children from weed. (The maximum sentence for giving marijuana to a minor is 14 years in prison!)<\/p>\n

And now we see whether it actually happens \u2014 by summer 2018, or at all.<\/p>\n

The news Thursday was full of worries and concerns and potential reasons why it might not. They range from legitimate-but-surmountable to downright silly.<\/p>\n

Yes, the science of THC impairment behind the wheel is inexact. So I guess pot-consuming car-drivers had better take that under advisement. THC-impaired driving is already illegal, after all.<\/p>\n

There is the bewilderingly persistent supposed issue of Canada\u2019s obligation to prohibit drugs under UN conventions on narcotic and psychotropic substances. This week, the University of Ottawa\u2019s Global Strategy Lab released a 27-page paper explaining \u201chow Canada can remain party to the conventions without either withdrawing \u2026 or amending them.\u201d It\u2019s all very interesting, but why not just withdraw from the damn things?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Frankly, I\u2019m amazed the Liberals have come even this far at a time when they\u2019re walking on eggshells around the Trump administration. To the extent it has articulated a pot policy, it has been the opposite of the relatively laissez-faire<\/em> approach the Obama administration took toward states that decided to legalize. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions talks about marijuana the way General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove<\/em> talks about communists.<\/p>\n

That will make legalization all the more impressive an achievement if the Liberals pull it off \u2014 and all the more damaging a self-inflicted wound if they don\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley looks at the Trudeau government’s marijuana legalization framework, as revealed on Thursday: The fact is, though, this is about as good a framework as we had any right to expect from the Canadian government. The feds will insist upon a safe and controlled supply chain, with licenses and inspections; you may keep four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,66,9,10],"tags":[887,83,98,691],"class_list":["post-38148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-health-science","category-law","category-liberty","tag-justintrudeau","tag-marijuana","tag-police","tag-unitednations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9Vi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40540,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38148\/revisions\/40540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}