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Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

327 points by john37386 8y ago

fredley 8y ago
This will be very interesting to watch. So far the marijuana debate seems to be stifled by the lack of hard evidence of what would happen were the drug legalised in a developed Western nation. Uruguay is different enough from the US etc. to be discountable, but Canada is not. Many advocates for legalisation will show how it is expected to reduce the overall harm from the drug. It will be interesting to see if this plays out in practice. I for one am hopeful.
- stock_toaster 8y ago
  > lack of hard evidence of what would happen were the drug legalised in a developed Western nation Does the Netherlands not count?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - trulyrandom 8y ago
    No, cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It's not legal there though is it, it's some form of legal accommodation short of legality that doesn't really give evidence for making recreational cannabis use legal.
  - AndrewDucker 8y ago
    It's not technically legal in the Netherlands. Just deeply tolerated in some places.
  - IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    No, it is illegal. Consumption and carrying small amounts is tolerated, police will not take any action and public attorneys never prosecute these cases. But production is illegal and besides two small plants in your home, completely not tolerated. If you get caught with say 10 plants they're destroyed with few other consequences. If you get caught with a more considerable production however, you get prosecuted. A lot of softdrug related crime isn't connected to consumption but rather production. The Netherlands isn't a good case study for studying effects on that kind of crime etc. Same with many other drugs like xtc. Consumption is rarely criminally targetted. Production is. Virtually ever farmer in the south of the country gets approached by drug producers, there's a whole undergeound web of crime, black money, corruption etc.
    - arandr0x 8y ago
      Production is also largely illegal in Canada, with the exception in some of the province of very limited growing for personal use. Legalization is, of course, legalizing consumption, there will be a government monopoly on the parts of the chains that actually generate money. You'll have to wait a while for the case study -- maybe until the US itself legalizes.
      - bregma 8y ago
        Production is legal and regulated in Canada. It's big business, and a major employer in my region. The value of my shares in cannabis-industry ETFs have tripled in the last few months.
        arandr0x 8y ago
        It's so regulated as to be effectively impossible for individuals to get into unless they have serious connections. I've seen the stocks on the TSX too. I was going by the meaning of the previous posters, which seemed to be saying that all the previously illegal players in the food chain could now step into the limelight and/or that new players could easily get in the industry -- it couldn't be farther from the truth. It's true that those businesses who benefitted from the regulation stand to be making serious money, and I suppose that is different from the situation in the Netherlands in a major way.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  It's been legal enough in California for years and recreational use is now explicitly legal in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington (with legal changes pending in other states). US national laws are certainly a different case, but the debate is hardly "stifled".
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    Recreational pot use here in Maine is "legal", but easy access to stores that sell pot explicitly for recreational use has been aggressively stalled and stymied by our republican state government. Only recently did our legislature finally overturn the last (hopefully) hurdle that the governor set up.
- vvillena 8y ago
  Nothing special will happen. Smoked weed is and will be a niche drug, since not many people like to smoke, and we all know how terrible it is for the mouth, the throat, and the lungs. Creative cannabis usage (oils, edibles...) will find a place, I'm sure. Still, the overarching issue will be the stigma weed has as a drug used by lazy people and hippies. It will take decades for that to change. Once that happens, we can revisit how weed affects people, and act on it if need be.
dredds 8y ago
Has a nice ring to it; "Canada Canabiz" Congrats from the rest of us in the world who are still waiting!
grecy 8y ago
Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought. US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it. If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holiday, you "Could be found admissible". could! When arriving by air into Canada you will be asked about previous Cannabis use. What? They don't ask about previous alcohol use, why do they for what is now perfectly legal Cannabis?
- Tharkun 8y ago
  > US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use What? How? Why? That makes no sense.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    They can deny entry for pretty much any reason. You are correct that the US border policy with Canada doesn't make any sense.
    - doombolt 8y ago
      I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself. If confession equals conviction, laws about right to remain silent should also apply. I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.
      - maxerickson 8y ago
        That's sort of orthogonal to the consequence of honestly answering the question. And of course the policy also says that if they think you lied, they might use that as a reason to deny entry in the future.
        8y ago
agumonkey 8y ago
Slight digression, yesterday someone told me the existence of the Kratom plant. Which seems another potent and not harmful leaf that can improve your quality of life. (the few research on it is muddy so grain of salt required, but the amount of people shouting publicly for it in the US gets one thinking).
- jgrahamc 8y ago
  Are you implying that marijuana is "not harmful" and "can improve your quality of life"?
  - denerio-a 8y ago
    Less harmful than alcohol, without a shadow of a doubt. Zero recorded deaths, in thousands of years of medical use - can :any: other substance say the same? And yes for many, many people it absolutely improves their quality of life dramatically. So, I have no idea why you’re taking issue with this statement (unless you work for a pharma co / drug gang, in which case I totally get why you would).
    - jgrahamc 8y ago
      I'm taking issue with that statement because I think the rhetoric around marijuana is misguided. I think it's swung too far to the "there's nothing wrong with marijuana at all" side and that's dangerous. Like alcohol it's important to recognize that it is not harmless. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, just that it should be regulated and reported on accurately.
      - alphadelphi 8y ago
        There is something wrong with it, obviously. But is not deadly and way less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol.
        jrace 8y ago
        What is obviously wrong with it? If you removed the criminal aspect to obtaining it, then what is wrong? Zero deaths...ZERO! Not even Potatoes can claim that.
drawkbox 8y ago
Canada is leading in personal freedoms and new markets with this move, ending cannabis prohibition that is long overdue and a step in ending the drug wars. The policy change regarding viewing drugs not as criminal but decriminalized and a health issue where needed, is the safer thing to do in a regulated market that will improve safety for recreational use and harm reduction. The War on Drugs started as an attack on personal freedoms and made drugs more dangerous both in production and use, spawning all sorts of synthetics that are more dangerous and black market mafia forces spawning violence just like during alcohol prohibition. Maybe in 2019 the US can be next as a whole ending cannabis prohibition, about 50 years after the kickoff of Nixon's drug wars due to losing to Leary in the SCOTUS over the Marihuana Tax Act [1] > Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 (1969), is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary, a professor and activist, was arrested for the possession of marijuana in violation of the Marihuana Tax Act. Leary challenged the act on the ground that the act required self-incrimination, which violated the Fifth Amendment. The unanimous opinion of the court was penned by Justice John Marshall Harlan II and declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional. Thus, Leary's conviction was overturned. Congress responded shortly thereafter by replacing the Marihuana Tax Act with the newly written Controlled Substances Act while continuing the prohibition of certain drugs in the United States Unfortunately, it is too bad leading states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and more aren't able to capitalize on the markets until the US as a whole federally ends prohibition. US states that are forward looking are cut off from banking, interstate commerce, global investment and are being held back by the anti-market approach of the current prohibitions. Canada stepped up to first mover globally for cannabis which will lead to a chance at global cannabis companies being Canadian. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States
- 49para 8y ago
  "Canada is leading in personal freedoms", perhaps in weed laws, not in free speech etc.
  - dh-g 8y ago
    Any examples in regards to free speech?
walrus01 8y ago
Anti weed people made a lot of noise when CO and WA legalized retail sales 4 years ago, as if it would cause mass chaos, but really nothing much has changed in those states. Law enforcement have much bigger problems to deal with like a fentanyl epidemic, and Seattle's rapidly growing homeless population and property crime problem.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  I wouldn't say that nothing has changed but nothing has occurred like what anti-cannabis activists claimed would happen. One outcome that gets mentioned is that vehicular accidents increased in Colorado following legalization but the population growth outpaced the relative growth in accidents, meaning per-capita vehicular accidents actually fell. Some data on cannabis and accident rates: https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/evaluating-research-marijuana-legalization-traffic-accidents.pdf https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/evaluating-res...
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    On a state (or country) level the increase in car crashes (only a small fraction of which will cause harm to people) is nothing compared to the negative side effects of criminalizing possession of weed. Decriminalizing drugs is a massive net win from a societal point of view even though there are negative side effects.
  - modoc 8y ago
    Wouldn't that mean that while many people moved to Colorado (some presumably for the weed) vehicle accident rates fell after legalization? The way you word it seems to imply that weed led to more accidents, and the incoming people "covered it up" statistically, but that doesn't seem to be the simplest read of the numbers.
- xoa 8y ago
  There's a lot of "monster under the bed" psychology used by opponents of this stuff, same happened with gay marriage. It's an exploitation of information asymmetry basically, most people simply don't have time to really look into details of everything, so the default "safe" position is generally seen to be the status quo unless they personally experience something wrong (either themselves or via part of their close social network, family/friends/close coworkers etc). Dishonest campaigners can lie and posit endless "possible" harms that are hard to conclusively disprove so long as there are no real world experiments anywhere, and have proven to be able to quite successfully delay progress for a long time. Having it be illegal can be sticky as well since it encourages people to hide how they personally are connected. However some consolation can be derived from it being a castle of sand and thus subject to a real tipping point effect. As soon as some trailblazer does manage to move forward and shine a light under the bed and it turns out that no, there is no monster, the sky does not in fact fall, and people realize that they do in fact know many people involved who were just hiding it before. Then it fairly rapidly becomes a non-issue to the majority of the population as they move on to new concrete (or invented, but new anyway) concerns. Hopefully the drug "war" will soon become the latest example.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>Ontario's new PC government has been quiet on prices, but said it aims to set them at a rate that would be competitive with illicit dispensaries. Do Canadian government set prices for many goods? Would the same prices apply to giving people pot you grew at home? Several times it mentions "smoking pot", surely they should be trying to make vaping or other use normative otherwise you're inviting lots of illnesses related to smoking anything. Does cannabis get cut with other plant matter a lot, are they planning on any enforcement there?
- user3359 8y ago
  Provinces and federal government set taxes on gasoline, cigarrettes and alcohol. The amount they can tax (as much as the consumer will bear) is likely highly researched. They want to tax as much as possible without discouraging reduced consumption, or alternative sourcing.
- jbeales 8y ago
  At least until April, a government website is the only legal way to buy pot in Ontario. Since they're selling it, they set the prices. In a lot of provinces the only legal way to get pot is through a government pot store. Alcohol works the same way; Ontario recently allowed the sales of wine & beer in some grocery stores, but everything else is at the LCBO, (government liquor stores), and the Beer Store, (which I think might be government run, but even if not it pretty much has a monopoly on beer sales).
  - bregma 8y ago
    The Beer Store is owned by two foreign-owned multinationals (the Belgian AB InBev and the American MolsonCoors). Not government run, but like many Ontario monopolies is has government in its pocket.
    - abledon 8y ago
      How would the government exit this deal ?
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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r3bl 8y ago
Don't forget: The current marijuana laws around the world can all be basically pinpointed to a single person: Harry motherfucking Anslinger[0], who was in the position of power within the US for unprecedented 32 years. He got in power 16 years before Trump was born, and ended up being in power until Trump turned 16. That guy loved to use anecdotes instead of facts, and presented marijuana as a drug that makes you kill people. As an example, he often used a case in which a guy from Florida killed his parents and chopped their bodies, always failing to mention that this person was recommended to go to a mental institution and didn't end up going there because his parents vouched for him. After Harry was done with criminalizing marijuana within the US, he started advocating for other countries to do as well, being the US representative in the United Nations Narcotics Commission. Even Thailand ended up criminalizing it, despite marijuana usage being embedded in their culture and history. The fear of the US turning their backs on you was and remained a risky action for smaller countries. The good news is we're on our way to revert his fuckery within a century. The bad news is that his fuckery lasted a century and got countless people sent to jail. For those interested in how the current drug laws came to be, I highly recommend you to read Chasing The Scream[1]. It has completely changed my perspective of drug usage and war on drugs and I consider it one of the best nonfiction books I got my hands on so far. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream
- crtasm 8y ago
  His department went after Billie Holiday, even as she lay in critical condition in hospital. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the-hunting-of-billie-holiday-114298?o=3 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the... (An extract from book recommended above)
- VLM 8y ago
  The real lesson of Anslinger is you take a guy who's hungry for power and feed him, and regardless of actual need you'll get a 10K person department under his control eventually. Its a misallocation thing. NACA (the predecessor of NASA) was 15 years old when Anslinger gained power, and if he was put in control of NACA we'd probably have landed on the moon before Pearl Harbor or some similar ridiculous accomplishment. But no, he was misallocated into some backwater of law enforcement, and thru personal skill he turned it from a backwater into maybe the dominant force in the field. Or more realistic than putting him in charge of future-NASA, if he instead were assigned to the SEC which was formed a couple years too late for him, imagine a world where a super-cop pounds down financial crime. There are bad boomer sports analogies with "the hot hand" and "the playmaker" and honestly I don't think Anslinger cared much about weed at all, as seen by his statements before he gained power; all he cared about was building a 10K person department, which led to the DEA we have today. Big corporate PR oriented mission statements mean nothing to people today, makes you wonder if they'll be vilified for ruining lives decades from now in some weird unanticipated quirk. Anslinger wasn't evil so much as he was tragic. What a waste, both his organizational skills and all the lives ruined as a side effect for decades after. Most discussion about the civilization wide effects of too many people for too few jobs focus on what millions of manual laborers or white collars being non-gainfully employed will do.. but another problem is imagine a world with 1000x as many Anslingers all able to build an empire, yet there are no useful productive empires to build, leading to 1000x the insanity of current drug laws in other fields. Imagine IP allocation, DNS resolution, or software licensing turned into a DEA-like dystopia, simply because there's no real jobs for empire builder-type people.
beloch 8y ago
How Canada interfaces with the rest of the world promises to be a bit screwy. For just one example, consider airline staff. Some Canadian airlines have already banned employees from using pot. Obviously, the general public doesn't want to fly with pilots that are high in more than one way. These airlines also have to operate in countries, like the U.S., where their employees could be detained or expelled for even admitting to have used pot in the past. Being able to look foreign gatekeepers in the face and deny having ever used a product that's legal in your native country is now a necessary job requirement for some. On the bright side, we could finally get some quality data on the health impacts of pot, now that trials and surveys can be done without potentially incriminating anyone. Like practically every other fun thing in existence it's probably very bad for you. We just don't know how... yet. Canada taxes alcohol at a rate of over 50% in most provinces. The initial tax rates for pot will be much lower, but should increase steadily year-over-year. Alcohol taxes continue to rise every year. This is going to be a huge cash cow for the Canadian government, and I can't imagine other countries not wanting to get in on the action once they see how much Canada will be raking in.
- lostgame 8y ago
  ‘Obviously, the general public doesn't want to fly with pilots that are high in more than one way.’ I laughed way too hard at this for some reason.
  - knightofmars 8y ago
    Not to derail the conversation. I agree, the delivery within the OP was spot on.
  - tyfon 8y ago
    I'd much rather have a high pilot than a hung-over/drunk pilot though which seems to be quite common.
    - tk75x 8y ago
      And then there's the stereotype that they're on stimulants a la Denzel Washington in "Flight"
hackermailman 8y ago
Sadly complete state control of online sales prevents us from running an erlang written dope auction site or similar business.
- kodablah 8y ago
  There is so much HN in this pithy comment, it's gorgeous.
706f6f70 8y ago
The really interesting studies will be longitudinal IMO. It's almost certainly not going to be another tobacco, but it strikes me as impossible that smoking marijuana is harmless. Should also be interesting to see what marijuana culture develops when the entire country is allowed to consume it legally.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Do we know what percentage of cannabis users actually smoke raw plant vs edibles, oils, etc? Not that the other products are necessarily harmless, but probably less problematic for lung health than smoking a giant blunt.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- neonscribe 8y ago
  It is extremely likely that inhaling combustion products of any kind is harmful to our health.
  - shittyadmin 8y ago
    Pretty much - however the differences we've seen so far are quite interesting. Lung cancer and COPD risks don't seem to be what we'd think for cannabis smoke based what we know of tobacco smoke. Somewhat more minor lung conditions are definitely present though. It'll also be interesting to see how things like dry herb vapes differ, they basically just heat the cannabis to 350-400 degrees where the cannabinoids and terpenes vaporize without burning it, they seem like the best way to go if you want a reasonably good dose control and safety margin at the moment. Avoids many of the issues with concentrate vapes, flavorings, cheap heating coils, etc but I still have some doubts on perfect safety there.
  - Simon_says 8y ago
    Agreed. But you can ingest marijuana.
  - 8y ago
qwerty456127 8y ago
Government stores OMG.
- plehoux 8y ago
  See Quebec province online store for pot: https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ which launched this morning.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    Online from October 17th in Canada only Until then, why not follow us on: www.sqdc.ca - Access Denied Error code 16 This request was blocked by the security rules
- giarc 8y ago
  Many provinces have a long history with government run liquor stores (see LCBO in Ontario, BC Liquor in BC, SAQ in Quebec). There are pro's and con's to those stores.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    Nice to know, thanks, I've never head about this phenomenon before, used to think government run stores only exist in officially communist countries like China.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      State liquor stores have been a thing in parts of the US, too.
- Raphmedia 8y ago
  It is already how it works for alcohol and gambling. Makes sense that drugs would also be sold by the government.
  - bregma 8y ago
thedonkeycometh 8y ago
Waiting for the Strange Brew reboot
ajcodez 8y ago
It could be a head start towards concentrating cannabis ownership in Canada, similar to mining. Voters also appreciate progressive changes. Good move by the government.
plehoux 8y ago
If you are interested to see what/how the products are marketed, see the SQDC website from Quebec province: https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ 1g = ~CAD$5
- abledon 8y ago
  Quebec gov websites have great web design . The saaq also is a great example
  - Raphmedia 8y ago
    They are done by web agencies and not in-house by the government.
  - simlevesque 8y ago
    That's nice to hear, I did one of them :)
    - abledon 8y ago
      Cool, I’m curious what the backend stack was ? Java, c# ?
      - simlevesque 8y ago
        No it's a huge Wordpress application. Started in 2016 and released in 2017. It's not ideal but it ended up being great. A huge part of the website is actually blog posts so it was a good match. I did not start the project and choose the tech but I ended up doing a large part of the project and led it when the lead dev quit (for unrelated reasons). I had lots of problems with the government hoster (CSPQ) but it all worked out in the end. It's the CALQ's website by the way.
        abledon 8y ago
        Php niiice , I love when critical government infra runs on the most despised languages on HN
lambersley 8y ago
Beyond usage of legal Cannabis in Canada, US Border agents can deny entry to those who work or invest in the Cannabis market.
- lwf 8y ago
  From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/canada/marijuana-legalization-explainer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/canada/marijuana-le... > Canadians who admit at the border to using marijuana may be refused admission, according to the United States border authorities. But the border agency said it would not routinely quiz Canadian travelers about their cannabis habits after Wednesday. > Employees of marijuana companies and their investors will generally be allowed to enter the United States, the agency said, if they are not coming on marijuana-related business. But the agency said those people might no longer be able to obtain or hold cards that speed up border crossings.
Dowwie 8y ago
Big Money has been flowing into Canadian canna-startups for years, featuring absolutely massive operations. Founders are claiming that their capacity is intended to supply the "International Market". I don't see how this is possible in state-regulated marketplaces, though. Why would, for instance, Massachusetts or California regulators allow local dispensaries to sell imported product? Even intra-state trade is uncertain.
- moate 8y ago
  It's not "why would California allow Colorado weed to get sold there" it's "will the Feds get involved because it's now an interstate commerce issue". IDK that the individual states would care where the product is being brought in from (hey, just tax the out of state stuff when it crosses the border!) because it doesn't limit their ability to influence/control the sale and usage in their state. You can exist in a gray area of "states rights" if everything is done in house. Eventually, the US will likely tip this way. The blue states are on board because they often see it as a criminal justice issue and taxable market. The red states will eventually want to get in on those agriculture jobs as their economies continue to slump (and as the older voters die out, since statistic show that younger generations have fewer issues with it).
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It's not "why would California allow Colorado weed to get sold there" it's "will the Feds get involved because it's now an interstate commerce issue". Wickard v. Filburn made it pretty clear that it's an interstate commerce issue way before that. The federal restraint on internal state-legalized trade is forbearance, not tied to any Constitutional principle. > IDK that the individual states would care where the product is being brought in from (hey, just tax the out of state stuff when it crosses the border!) Since when are state import duties not expressly prohibited by the Constitution?
cmrdporcupine 8y ago
I don't trust Shopify (or any other merchant) to run the online Ontario Cannabis store in a way that won't ultimately lead to an American federal policing agency demanding records and the names of all customers ending up on some list that Homeland security can peruse during border crossings. So I won't be partaking for that reason, among others.
forkLding 8y ago
Been seeing a lot of don't get high and drive govt. ads here in Canada, feels surreal.

327 points by john37386 8y ago

This will be very interesting to watch. So far the marijuana debate seems to be stifled by the lack of hard evidence of what would happen were the drug legalised in a developed Western nation. Uruguay is different enough from the US etc. to be discountable, but Canada is not. Many advocates for legalisation will show how it is expected to reduce the overall harm from the drug. It will be interesting to see if this plays out in practice. I for one am hopeful.

stock_toaster 8y ago
> lack of hard evidence of what would happen were the drug legalised in a developed Western nation Does the Netherlands not count?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- trulyrandom 8y ago
  No, cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  It's not legal there though is it, it's some form of legal accommodation short of legality that doesn't really give evidence for making recreational cannabis use legal.
- AndrewDucker 8y ago
  It's not technically legal in the Netherlands. Just deeply tolerated in some places.
- IkmoIkmo 8y ago
  No, it is illegal. Consumption and carrying small amounts is tolerated, police will not take any action and public attorneys never prosecute these cases. But production is illegal and besides two small plants in your home, completely not tolerated. If you get caught with say 10 plants they're destroyed with few other consequences. If you get caught with a more considerable production however, you get prosecuted. A lot of softdrug related crime isn't connected to consumption but rather production. The Netherlands isn't a good case study for studying effects on that kind of crime etc. Same with many other drugs like xtc. Consumption is rarely criminally targetted. Production is. Virtually ever farmer in the south of the country gets approached by drug producers, there's a whole undergeound web of crime, black money, corruption etc.
  - arandr0x 8y ago
    Production is also largely illegal in Canada, with the exception in some of the province of very limited growing for personal use. Legalization is, of course, legalizing consumption, there will be a government monopoly on the parts of the chains that actually generate money. You'll have to wait a while for the case study -- maybe until the US itself legalizes.
    - bregma 8y ago
      Production is legal and regulated in Canada. It's big business, and a major employer in my region. The value of my shares in cannabis-industry ETFs have tripled in the last few months.
      - arandr0x 8y ago
        It's so regulated as to be effectively impossible for individuals to get into unless they have serious connections. I've seen the stocks on the TSX too. I was going by the meaning of the previous posters, which seemed to be saying that all the previously illegal players in the food chain could now step into the limelight and/or that new players could easily get in the industry -- it couldn't be farther from the truth. It's true that those businesses who benefitted from the regulation stand to be making serious money, and I suppose that is different from the situation in the Netherlands in a major way.
maxerickson 8y ago
It's been legal enough in California for years and recreational use is now explicitly legal in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington (with legal changes pending in other states). US national laws are certainly a different case, but the debate is hardly "stifled".
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  Recreational pot use here in Maine is "legal", but easy access to stores that sell pot explicitly for recreational use has been aggressively stalled and stymied by our republican state government. Only recently did our legislature finally overturn the last (hopefully) hurdle that the governor set up.
vvillena 8y ago
Nothing special will happen. Smoked weed is and will be a niche drug, since not many people like to smoke, and we all know how terrible it is for the mouth, the throat, and the lungs. Creative cannabis usage (oils, edibles...) will find a place, I'm sure. Still, the overarching issue will be the stigma weed has as a drug used by lazy people and hippies. It will take decades for that to change. Once that happens, we can revisit how weed affects people, and act on it if need be.

dredds 8y ago

Has a nice ring to it; "Canada Canabiz" Congrats from the rest of us in the world who are still waiting!

grecy 8y ago

Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought. US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it. If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holiday, you "Could be found admissible". could! When arriving by air into Canada you will be asked about previous Cannabis use. What? They don't ask about previous alcohol use, why do they for what is now perfectly legal Cannabis?

Tharkun 8y ago
> US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use What? How? Why? That makes no sense.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  They can deny entry for pretty much any reason. You are correct that the US border policy with Canada doesn't make any sense.
  - doombolt 8y ago
    I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself. If confession equals conviction, laws about right to remain silent should also apply. I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      That's sort of orthogonal to the consequence of honestly answering the question. And of course the policy also says that if they think you lied, they might use that as a reason to deny entry in the future.
      - 8y ago

agumonkey 8y ago

Slight digression, yesterday someone told me the existence of the Kratom plant. Which seems another potent and not harmful leaf that can improve your quality of life. (the few research on it is muddy so grain of salt required, but the amount of people shouting publicly for it in the US gets one thinking).

jgrahamc 8y ago
Are you implying that marijuana is "not harmful" and "can improve your quality of life"?
- denerio-a 8y ago
  Less harmful than alcohol, without a shadow of a doubt. Zero recorded deaths, in thousands of years of medical use - can :any: other substance say the same? And yes for many, many people it absolutely improves their quality of life dramatically. So, I have no idea why you’re taking issue with this statement (unless you work for a pharma co / drug gang, in which case I totally get why you would).
  - jgrahamc 8y ago
    I'm taking issue with that statement because I think the rhetoric around marijuana is misguided. I think it's swung too far to the "there's nothing wrong with marijuana at all" side and that's dangerous. Like alcohol it's important to recognize that it is not harmless. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, just that it should be regulated and reported on accurately.
    - alphadelphi 8y ago
      There is something wrong with it, obviously. But is not deadly and way less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol.
      - jrace 8y ago
        What is obviously wrong with it? If you removed the criminal aspect to obtaining it, then what is wrong? Zero deaths...ZERO! Not even Potatoes can claim that.

drawkbox 8y ago

Canada is leading in personal freedoms and new markets with this move, ending cannabis prohibition that is long overdue and a step in ending the drug wars. The policy change regarding viewing drugs not as criminal but decriminalized and a health issue where needed, is the safer thing to do in a regulated market that will improve safety for recreational use and harm reduction. The War on Drugs started as an attack on personal freedoms and made drugs more dangerous both in production and use, spawning all sorts of synthetics that are more dangerous and black market mafia forces spawning violence just like during alcohol prohibition. Maybe in 2019 the US can be next as a whole ending cannabis prohibition, about 50 years after the kickoff of Nixon's drug wars due to losing to Leary in the SCOTUS over the Marihuana Tax Act [1] > Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 (1969), is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary, a professor and activist, was arrested for the possession of marijuana in violation of the Marihuana Tax Act. Leary challenged the act on the ground that the act required self-incrimination, which violated the Fifth Amendment. The unanimous opinion of the court was penned by Justice John Marshall Harlan II and declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional. Thus, Leary's conviction was overturned. Congress responded shortly thereafter by replacing the Marihuana Tax Act with the newly written Controlled Substances Act while continuing the prohibition of certain drugs in the United States Unfortunately, it is too bad leading states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and more aren't able to capitalize on the markets until the US as a whole federally ends prohibition. US states that are forward looking are cut off from banking, interstate commerce, global investment and are being held back by the anti-market approach of the current prohibitions. Canada stepped up to first mover globally for cannabis which will lead to a chance at global cannabis companies being Canadian. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States

49para 8y ago
"Canada is leading in personal freedoms", perhaps in weed laws, not in free speech etc.
- dh-g 8y ago
  Any examples in regards to free speech?

walrus01 8y ago

Anti weed people made a lot of noise when CO and WA legalized retail sales 4 years ago, as if it would cause mass chaos, but really nothing much has changed in those states. Law enforcement have much bigger problems to deal with like a fentanyl epidemic, and Seattle's rapidly growing homeless population and property crime problem.

wavefunction 8y ago
I wouldn't say that nothing has changed but nothing has occurred like what anti-cannabis activists claimed would happen. One outcome that gets mentioned is that vehicular accidents increased in Colorado following legalization but the population growth outpaced the relative growth in accidents, meaning per-capita vehicular accidents actually fell. Some data on cannabis and accident rates: https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/evaluating-research-marijuana-legalization-traffic-accidents.pdf https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/evaluating-res...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  On a state (or country) level the increase in car crashes (only a small fraction of which will cause harm to people) is nothing compared to the negative side effects of criminalizing possession of weed. Decriminalizing drugs is a massive net win from a societal point of view even though there are negative side effects.
- modoc 8y ago
  Wouldn't that mean that while many people moved to Colorado (some presumably for the weed) vehicle accident rates fell after legalization? The way you word it seems to imply that weed led to more accidents, and the incoming people "covered it up" statistically, but that doesn't seem to be the simplest read of the numbers.
xoa 8y ago
There's a lot of "monster under the bed" psychology used by opponents of this stuff, same happened with gay marriage. It's an exploitation of information asymmetry basically, most people simply don't have time to really look into details of everything, so the default "safe" position is generally seen to be the status quo unless they personally experience something wrong (either themselves or via part of their close social network, family/friends/close coworkers etc). Dishonest campaigners can lie and posit endless "possible" harms that are hard to conclusively disprove so long as there are no real world experiments anywhere, and have proven to be able to quite successfully delay progress for a long time. Having it be illegal can be sticky as well since it encourages people to hide how they personally are connected. However some consolation can be derived from it being a castle of sand and thus subject to a real tipping point effect. As soon as some trailblazer does manage to move forward and shine a light under the bed and it turns out that no, there is no monster, the sky does not in fact fall, and people realize that they do in fact know many people involved who were just hiding it before. Then it fairly rapidly becomes a non-issue to the majority of the population as they move on to new concrete (or invented, but new anyway) concerns. Hopefully the drug "war" will soon become the latest example.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

>Ontario's new PC government has been quiet on prices, but said it aims to set them at a rate that would be competitive with illicit dispensaries. Do Canadian government set prices for many goods? Would the same prices apply to giving people pot you grew at home? Several times it mentions "smoking pot", surely they should be trying to make vaping or other use normative otherwise you're inviting lots of illnesses related to smoking anything. Does cannabis get cut with other plant matter a lot, are they planning on any enforcement there?

user3359 8y ago
Provinces and federal government set taxes on gasoline, cigarrettes and alcohol. The amount they can tax (as much as the consumer will bear) is likely highly researched. They want to tax as much as possible without discouraging reduced consumption, or alternative sourcing.
jbeales 8y ago
At least until April, a government website is the only legal way to buy pot in Ontario. Since they're selling it, they set the prices. In a lot of provinces the only legal way to get pot is through a government pot store. Alcohol works the same way; Ontario recently allowed the sales of wine & beer in some grocery stores, but everything else is at the LCBO, (government liquor stores), and the Beer Store, (which I think might be government run, but even if not it pretty much has a monopoly on beer sales).
- bregma 8y ago
  The Beer Store is owned by two foreign-owned multinationals (the Belgian AB InBev and the American MolsonCoors). Not government run, but like many Ontario monopolies is has government in its pocket.
  - abledon 8y ago
    How would the government exit this deal ?
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

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r3bl 8y ago

Don't forget: The current marijuana laws around the world can all be basically pinpointed to a single person: Harry motherfucking Anslinger[0], who was in the position of power within the US for unprecedented 32 years. He got in power 16 years before Trump was born, and ended up being in power until Trump turned 16. That guy loved to use anecdotes instead of facts, and presented marijuana as a drug that makes you kill people. As an example, he often used a case in which a guy from Florida killed his parents and chopped their bodies, always failing to mention that this person was recommended to go to a mental institution and didn't end up going there because his parents vouched for him. After Harry was done with criminalizing marijuana within the US, he started advocating for other countries to do as well, being the US representative in the United Nations Narcotics Commission. Even Thailand ended up criminalizing it, despite marijuana usage being embedded in their culture and history. The fear of the US turning their backs on you was and remained a risky action for smaller countries. The good news is we're on our way to revert his fuckery within a century. The bad news is that his fuckery lasted a century and got countless people sent to jail. For those interested in how the current drug laws came to be, I highly recommend you to read Chasing The Scream[1]. It has completely changed my perspective of drug usage and war on drugs and I consider it one of the best nonfiction books I got my hands on so far. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream

crtasm 8y ago
His department went after Billie Holiday, even as she lay in critical condition in hospital. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the-hunting-of-billie-holiday-114298?o=3 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the... (An extract from book recommended above)
VLM 8y ago
The real lesson of Anslinger is you take a guy who's hungry for power and feed him, and regardless of actual need you'll get a 10K person department under his control eventually. Its a misallocation thing. NACA (the predecessor of NASA) was 15 years old when Anslinger gained power, and if he was put in control of NACA we'd probably have landed on the moon before Pearl Harbor or some similar ridiculous accomplishment. But no, he was misallocated into some backwater of law enforcement, and thru personal skill he turned it from a backwater into maybe the dominant force in the field. Or more realistic than putting him in charge of future-NASA, if he instead were assigned to the SEC which was formed a couple years too late for him, imagine a world where a super-cop pounds down financial crime. There are bad boomer sports analogies with "the hot hand" and "the playmaker" and honestly I don't think Anslinger cared much about weed at all, as seen by his statements before he gained power; all he cared about was building a 10K person department, which led to the DEA we have today. Big corporate PR oriented mission statements mean nothing to people today, makes you wonder if they'll be vilified for ruining lives decades from now in some weird unanticipated quirk. Anslinger wasn't evil so much as he was tragic. What a waste, both his organizational skills and all the lives ruined as a side effect for decades after. Most discussion about the civilization wide effects of too many people for too few jobs focus on what millions of manual laborers or white collars being non-gainfully employed will do.. but another problem is imagine a world with 1000x as many Anslingers all able to build an empire, yet there are no useful productive empires to build, leading to 1000x the insanity of current drug laws in other fields. Imagine IP allocation, DNS resolution, or software licensing turned into a DEA-like dystopia, simply because there's no real jobs for empire builder-type people.

beloch 8y ago

How Canada interfaces with the rest of the world promises to be a bit screwy. For just one example, consider airline staff. Some Canadian airlines have already banned employees from using pot. Obviously, the general public doesn't want to fly with pilots that are high in more than one way. These airlines also have to operate in countries, like the U.S., where their employees could be detained or expelled for even admitting to have used pot in the past. Being able to look foreign gatekeepers in the face and deny having ever used a product that's legal in your native country is now a necessary job requirement for some. On the bright side, we could finally get some quality data on the health impacts of pot, now that trials and surveys can be done without potentially incriminating anyone. Like practically every other fun thing in existence it's probably very bad for you. We just don't know how... yet. Canada taxes alcohol at a rate of over 50% in most provinces. The initial tax rates for pot will be much lower, but should increase steadily year-over-year. Alcohol taxes continue to rise every year. This is going to be a huge cash cow for the Canadian government, and I can't imagine other countries not wanting to get in on the action once they see how much Canada will be raking in.

lostgame 8y ago
‘Obviously, the general public doesn't want to fly with pilots that are high in more than one way.’ I laughed way too hard at this for some reason.
- knightofmars 8y ago
  Not to derail the conversation. I agree, the delivery within the OP was spot on.
- tyfon 8y ago
  I'd much rather have a high pilot than a hung-over/drunk pilot though which seems to be quite common.
  - tk75x 8y ago
    And then there's the stereotype that they're on stimulants a la Denzel Washington in "Flight"

hackermailman 8y ago

Sadly complete state control of online sales prevents us from running an erlang written dope auction site or similar business.

kodablah 8y ago
There is so much HN in this pithy comment, it's gorgeous.

706f6f70 8y ago

The really interesting studies will be longitudinal IMO. It's almost certainly not going to be another tobacco, but it strikes me as impossible that smoking marijuana is harmless. Should also be interesting to see what marijuana culture develops when the entire country is allowed to consume it legally.

alistairSH 8y ago
Do we know what percentage of cannabis users actually smoke raw plant vs edibles, oils, etc? Not that the other products are necessarily harmless, but probably less problematic for lung health than smoking a giant blunt.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
neonscribe 8y ago
It is extremely likely that inhaling combustion products of any kind is harmful to our health.
- shittyadmin 8y ago
  Pretty much - however the differences we've seen so far are quite interesting. Lung cancer and COPD risks don't seem to be what we'd think for cannabis smoke based what we know of tobacco smoke. Somewhat more minor lung conditions are definitely present though. It'll also be interesting to see how things like dry herb vapes differ, they basically just heat the cannabis to 350-400 degrees where the cannabinoids and terpenes vaporize without burning it, they seem like the best way to go if you want a reasonably good dose control and safety margin at the moment. Avoids many of the issues with concentrate vapes, flavorings, cheap heating coils, etc but I still have some doubts on perfect safety there.
- Simon_says 8y ago
  Agreed. But you can ingest marijuana.
- 8y ago

qwerty456127 8y ago

Government stores OMG.

plehoux 8y ago
See Quebec province online store for pot: https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ which launched this morning.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Online from October 17th in Canada only Until then, why not follow us on: www.sqdc.ca - Access Denied Error code 16 This request was blocked by the security rules
giarc 8y ago
Many provinces have a long history with government run liquor stores (see LCBO in Ontario, BC Liquor in BC, SAQ in Quebec). There are pro's and con's to those stores.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Nice to know, thanks, I've never head about this phenomenon before, used to think government run stores only exist in officially communist countries like China.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    State liquor stores have been a thing in parts of the US, too.
Raphmedia 8y ago
It is already how it works for alcohol and gambling. Makes sense that drugs would also be sold by the government.
- bregma 8y ago

thedonkeycometh 8y ago

Waiting for the Strange Brew reboot

ajcodez 8y ago

It could be a head start towards concentrating cannabis ownership in Canada, similar to mining. Voters also appreciate progressive changes. Good move by the government.

plehoux 8y ago

If you are interested to see what/how the products are marketed, see the SQDC website from Quebec province: https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/ 1g = ~CAD$5

abledon 8y ago
Quebec gov websites have great web design . The saaq also is a great example
- Raphmedia 8y ago
  They are done by web agencies and not in-house by the government.
- simlevesque 8y ago
  That's nice to hear, I did one of them :)
  - abledon 8y ago
    Cool, I’m curious what the backend stack was ? Java, c# ?
    - simlevesque 8y ago
      No it's a huge Wordpress application. Started in 2016 and released in 2017. It's not ideal but it ended up being great. A huge part of the website is actually blog posts so it was a good match. I did not start the project and choose the tech but I ended up doing a large part of the project and led it when the lead dev quit (for unrelated reasons). I had lots of problems with the government hoster (CSPQ) but it all worked out in the end. It's the CALQ's website by the way.
      - abledon 8y ago
        Php niiice , I love when critical government infra runs on the most despised languages on HN

lambersley 8y ago

Beyond usage of legal Cannabis in Canada, US Border agents can deny entry to those who work or invest in the Cannabis market.

lwf 8y ago
From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/canada/marijuana-legalization-explainer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/canada/marijuana-le... > Canadians who admit at the border to using marijuana may be refused admission, according to the United States border authorities. But the border agency said it would not routinely quiz Canadian travelers about their cannabis habits after Wednesday. > Employees of marijuana companies and their investors will generally be allowed to enter the United States, the agency said, if they are not coming on marijuana-related business. But the agency said those people might no longer be able to obtain or hold cards that speed up border crossings.

Dowwie 8y ago

Big Money has been flowing into Canadian canna-startups for years, featuring absolutely massive operations. Founders are claiming that their capacity is intended to supply the "International Market". I don't see how this is possible in state-regulated marketplaces, though. Why would, for instance, Massachusetts or California regulators allow local dispensaries to sell imported product? Even intra-state trade is uncertain.

moate 8y ago
It's not "why would California allow Colorado weed to get sold there" it's "will the Feds get involved because it's now an interstate commerce issue". IDK that the individual states would care where the product is being brought in from (hey, just tax the out of state stuff when it crosses the border!) because it doesn't limit their ability to influence/control the sale and usage in their state. You can exist in a gray area of "states rights" if everything is done in house. Eventually, the US will likely tip this way. The blue states are on board because they often see it as a criminal justice issue and taxable market. The red states will eventually want to get in on those agriculture jobs as their economies continue to slump (and as the older voters die out, since statistic show that younger generations have fewer issues with it).
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > It's not "why would California allow Colorado weed to get sold there" it's "will the Feds get involved because it's now an interstate commerce issue". Wickard v. Filburn made it pretty clear that it's an interstate commerce issue way before that. The federal restraint on internal state-legalized trade is forbearance, not tied to any Constitutional principle. > IDK that the individual states would care where the product is being brought in from (hey, just tax the out of state stuff when it crosses the border!) Since when are state import duties not expressly prohibited by the Constitution?

cmrdporcupine 8y ago

I don't trust Shopify (or any other merchant) to run the online Ontario Cannabis store in a way that won't ultimately lead to an American federal policing agency demanding records and the names of all customers ending up on some list that Homeland security can peruse during border crossings. So I won't be partaking for that reason, among others.

forkLding 8y ago

Been seeing a lot of don't get high and drive govt. ads here in Canada, feels surreal.