6 ms·

Why Canada's cannabis bubble burst

108 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lightedman 7y ago
Way too much illegal vs legal supply for legal demand to keep up. Same glut we're having in California, excepting half of that is caused directly by zoning laws and such making it almost impossible to open a legal dispensary despite it being legalized in the state.
- teunispeters 7y ago
  Speaking as a Canadian (and utterly uninterested in cannabis) - this is closest to accurate. Many jurisdictions are openly hostile Most parts of the country limited access, supply and transportation. It's hard to make a legal business work when most are still against it functioning. That said, it ain't dead yet.
- edoceo 7y ago
  This zoning issue has affected every state that moved to legal over the last five years and will, for sure, play the same in the states launching in 2020. Many millions have been spent on just legal wrangling to start a business
- oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
  This is changing quickly in Toronto at least. There were a bunch of gray market retail dispensaries which were way more convenient then ordering online and waiting a few days for delivery. OCS has launched a bunch of retail stores in the same areas.
pmoriarty 7y ago
Another reason for users turning to the black market that this article did not mention but that I've heard mentioned elsewhere is that Canada purportedly limits the potency of legal cannabis to relatively low levels, so the black market remains the only source of high potency cannabis.
- posterboy 7y ago
  purportedly? I know you mean hybrid strains bread for high potency. Prohibitting those if otherwise legal would require a legal basis. I thought one objective of legalization was to avoid laced product. Of course lacing weed to make it appear more potent and to be addictive is still forbidden. I have no source for that. Chalk it up as purported rumor. I've heard police test a crusher (weed grinder, whatchamacallit) positive for co-alkaloids and amphetamin in Germany.
  - petre 7y ago
    Wine production from hybrid grapevine is also prohibited in the EU due to lesser reasons. The French largely influenced EU wine legislation. Only the rootstock is hybrid because it's disease and fungus resistant. https://winesvinesanalytics.com/news/article/201942/Will-Europe-Embrace-Hybrid-Wine-Grapes https://winesvinesanalytics.com/news/article/201942/Will-Eur... If you want to drink wine from hybrid grapes in the EU, you have to buy import (Moldova, North Macedonia etc) or homemade (usualy low quality) wine. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had to uproot most of their hybrids upon joining the EU. The same would happen to Macedonia.
    - posterboy 7y ago
      This is the tragedy of the commons. It's entirely reasonable that Designated Origin rules prescribe the ingredients and naming of products, e.g. for champagne. The problem is that varieties cross polinate through air and thus endanger--oh my gosh--the traditional wine bread. That much I can gather although the article doesn't say so. It's probably a little more complicated, sure. The article only says that hybrids from the 19th century were inferior; suppose taste wise. Which is a matter of taste, but likely reflected in sales. The upside is resistance to fungi and such.
      - petre 7y ago
        Yes, there are modern hybrids suitable for colder climates. The rules have been relaxed a bit since.
rublev 7y ago
My dealer pulls up within half an hour of texting them, with a full ounce they grew themselves. They know everything about the plant, and breed it for high THC. No delivery fee. Friendly. Great weed. No packaging. No bullshit. And great deals. Most dealer you buy from you won't be paying $280 ($10/h per O). Why would I ever go the "legal" route?
- LemonAndroid 7y ago
  You don't have a guilty conscience for putting people behind bars by your behavior?
  - jungletek 7y ago
    Shouldn't you be asking the law makers and law enforcers that question? If you support such laws, shouldn't you ask yourself the same question? Illegal != immoral, after all.
    - LemonAndroid 7y ago
      I don't support these laws
  - rublev 7y ago
    I'm in Canada. It's legal regardless.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Why would I ever go the "legal" route? Sure. I've had some excellent homegrown weed. Most parts of the US don't have access to this though. Even in the Bay Area there are places where the homegrown stuff is pretty low quality. If I go to a dispensary I can get a much greater selection, is consistent quality, and isn't grown in some destructive "farm" in a state park. The dispensary I go to takes online orders and has them ready in 10 minutes. I'm mostly into edibles these days. It was a bit disappointing when California capped the max THC per package (100 mg) -- but upside is pretty awesome. I can get a consistent product that's been tested to be a certain potency and free of pesticides and whatnot.
conductr 7y ago
Since 90s or so I’ve viewed Canada as quasi legal. Very low enforcement compared to my US experience. It seemed like a larger amount of homegrown and related technologies came out of Canada. Maybe I’m wrong. But if that is true, for consumer there’s really no advantage to going retail and lots of disadvantages as mentioned. So the “black market” sounds bad it’s really like a local artisan. Not some terrorist funding cartel run thing. Just your friend from down the road that shares his bounty.
- FooHentai 7y ago
  To flip the question around, what's the benefit of regulation? If none, then yeah, it's less weight to just not do it. But without regulation, presumably you get shady growers/dealers with products of dubious constitution. It looks like the price of legalization (in this case) is taxation and regulation. It should have been possible to legalize without either of these things, but that didn't happen. Gotta wonder why.
- SuperPaintMan 7y ago
  Very true, the RCMP in my hometown were rarely doing raids/busts or anything of the sort. Unless you we're trying to muck around with hard drugs or driving around in a hotboxed car. There were multiple parents/working class people with tables/setups in their garage. Come over for a cup of coffee, catch up about the kids, grab a few grams until next week! Nothing nefarious. On the consumer end the logistics is really the benefit of legal weed. You don't have to know a guy, play a game of telephone, wait around. Instead you can visit a professionally run store filled with people that know about the products and gear that is stocked. Makes it much easier to add into the routine right beside picking up groceries. That being said you pay a premium for that, and there's still black-market services doing Amazon style home delivery.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    driving around in a hotboxed car Speaking of things that don't raise an eyebrow in San Francisco.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
moltar 7y ago
You could also blame the government inefficiency in QC. The stores are government ran. The one in Montreal on St Catherine has permanent bread lines at any time of the day. Some of the product is sold out first thing in the morning and you need to arrive an hour before opening. It’s like Soviet Union of weed.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Quebec is always a special case of bureaucracy and government mismanagement. Remember that all liquor stores in Quebec are government stores too. I suspect they'll start distributing them there - possibly dependent upon neighborhood approval. I'll note that the neighborhood I'm in - the older folks are not happy about the new constant pot smell around.
  - moltar 7y ago
    In ON the liquor is also controlled by LCBO, yet marijuana was given to the private sector. I guess they learned their lesson with liquor control.
    - Deinumite 7y ago
      I wouldn't say so. The original plan was to have the LCBO handle sales of marijuana as well. The Liberal government that was drafting this plan lost the provincial election and the Conservative government scrapped that it. So it nobody learned any lessons, we just had interesting timing with our election.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      Sorta. The retailers still have to buy from the provincial monopoly warehouse. Unless that's been changed. It changes everytime we sneeze.
    - mynegation 7y ago
      What is the lesson though? I have zero problems with LCBO.
- 7y ago
sysbin 7y ago
I’m under the impression that the market will grow with time. The product happens to be great enough for my standards. The obvious downside is the requirement from a person needing to explore the dosage intake themselves and contrary to how everyone can dive into coffee for a different type of high. I’m skeptical of the price being where it should be because I think it’s too high resulting in the profits being worse then what could be achieved. Interestingly all the high THC strains are usually all sold out online in my province’s store but I think most people that would enjoy the benefits from the high would prefer a low to medium THC or even CBD strain. Edibles are in my opinion dangerous and I’m curious to see how that will likely make no difference in sales. I think what needs to happen is the ability to micro dose safely without any unpleasantness and be affordable. Vaping can make it affordable but dosing isn’t as accurate as I believe it should be.
Zombieball 7y ago
In downtown Vancouver the government website only lists one “legal” cannabis store yet a quick google search shows +20 listings: https://justice.gov.bc.ca/cannabislicensing/map https://justice.gov.bc.ca/cannabislicensing/map I would suspect that many people purchasing on the black market are in fact purchasing from stores (not just “their weed guy”) but don’t realize the store is not properly licensed.
- klyrs 7y ago
  Don't trust that; unlicensed shops have been closing down much faster than google's been keeping up. Source: I'm a customer that preferred the unlicensed shops because the product and pricing was better. I was never ignorant about their legal status. In licensed shops you get a very limited selection and typically, a low inventory. They've got little sniffer pods where you're supposed to be able to smell the product but it's nothing like the old shops where they'd have a canister where you could really get a good whiff. Packaging requirements mean that there's a limited selection of quantities; and typically, the packaging is at least 3x bigger (and significantly more expensive) than previously. My preferred purchasing pattern is to buy a single gram of a few unfamiliar strains, test them out, and then come back in a few days to get an ounce of the best one. With this pattern, I only need to go to the store a few times a year. With the new shops, they don't carry single grams, and you can't save on packaging by buying in bulk -- if you want an ounce, you'd have to buy 10 of the 3.5g canisters. I was pro-legalization for obvious reasons but now I wish I had a good black-market hookup.
kresten 7y ago
I’m guessing there’s a market if it’s available and convenient to buy and of good quality and reasonably priced.
truebosko 7y ago
The lack of edibles for the initial launch is a big blocker for casual adoption IMO. As per the visuals, cannabis use has not grown dramatically since legalization. Oils and raw bud are simply not as accessible as a bar of chocolate. I imagine that won't cause a significant bump either, but at the least, it opens up the market to the casual user -- which simply has not happened yet in Canada.
dpflan 7y ago
It seems that convenience is an important factor; access to retail in the most populous province is low, so alternative means of access to the good are still in favor (i.e. black market). Purport the bubble is bursting after examining the system when it is functioning in a less constrained way that rivals the current system (i.e. black market). "This is especially true in Ontario, Canada's most populous province. Red tape and a cap on the number of cannabis retail outlets have made rollout slow. Retail licenses were awarded by lottery, and the province held the number of licenses at 24, to serve a population of 14.5m." "In December, the Ontario government announced that after a slow and fitful start, the province will open itself up to more cannabis retail. It will do away with the lottery system, the cap on the number of private stores and cancel some pre-qualification requirements." List of Canadian Provinces by Population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and...
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  Is it even constitutional for a province to sandbag a federal regulation like this? Retail marijuana sales in Ontario are still effectively illegal.
  - herge 7y ago
    Because it is unconstitutional for the federal government to but into commercial law that is not under it's purview?
    - derefr 7y ago
      Provinces aren’t states. The powers of the Canadian provincial governments are delegated to them from the Canadian federal government, not the other way around. Canada does not have a constitution that constrains federal power, since it was not formed by the uniting of states wary of federal power, but rather the uniting of colonies which all considered themselves to be under the aegis of a single sovereignty (Britain). Fun fact: rather than each province having a plain-old governor, Canada (as any Commonwealth country) has one Governor General for the whole country; and then each province has a Lieutenant Governor, also appointed by the Queen, to serve under the Governor General.
dumbfoundded 7y ago
I don't think it burst because of the Canadian market. It burst due to the Canadian LPs building out infrastructure like there was going to be this giant international market in Europe and the US. The Canadians haven't been able to penetrate either market. The US seems to be handling itself and the tiny legal international cannabis export/import market is being targeted by Colombia aggressively. The Canadians only ever had the advantage of first mover and now that legal barrier is collapsing. What else grows in Canada? Check out these pics from Colombia: https://medellinguru.com/colombia-cannabis/ https://medellinguru.com/colombia-cannabis/ In Colombia, you can grow year round with only tarps up to catch the rain.
Thriptic 7y ago
You see the same problems in the American market too. Contrast the following experiences. To buy legally, I have to go trek out to my local dispensary, sit outside for 30 min - 1 hour, hope they have what I want when I get inside (no way to check in advance as they have no inventory management), pay 100% more than black market value per quantity, deal with ridiculously arbitrary restrictions on how much and what I am allowed to buy, I have to pay with cash, and I receive product with low potency. If I want to buy illegally, I can call ping my friend, they tell me the whole inventory in advance, I tell them what I want, they bring it to me for free, I get very high quality product, it's very cheap, and we hang out for a few hours. Which experience do you think most people choose?
- tashoecraft 7y ago
  Legal. I’m not a heavy user, but legal has been the amazing. I can pick up edibles of known amounts of thc. The sales people are friendly and knowledgeable. Buying illegally was always sketchy, never knowing if someone would show up, how good the product was, if it actually was indica or sativa or hybrid, it was always just “good shit”, which wasn’t always true. Prices feel the same and it’s defiantly not lower potency in my experience.
  - yocheckitdawg 7y ago
    I agree, I am in Australia so no legal weed here but I would happily pay more to be able to buy edibles as well as know exactly what I am buying and what the dosages are.
  - Cougher 7y ago
    Not to mention that illegal growers don't care what poisons they douse the plants with as long as the insects die before they can eat them. Then the users smoke this crap. I don't know that we've yet seen the healthcare outcome of this.
- mikewhy 7y ago
  Conversely, in Nova Scotia, I can go to my closest dispensary, wait about 5 minutes in line (inside a surprisingly posh store), pay with a simple tap, and I'm on my way. The biggest issue here is the waste from packaging.
conchy 7y ago
This story is really a parable for government involvement in anything vs. the free market.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  How about monopolies?
hi5eyes 7y ago
another more hn reason why would i bother putting my info into a govt database of people consuming products that are illegal in most areas of the world? my friend recently got banned from the us for having a small amount for personal consumption would rather get higher quality/better priced product from friends that get shipped to me at my convenience than deal with the headache of legal weed
- flycaliguy 7y ago
  Just for clarification, your friend tried to cross into the US with weed?
aurizon 7y ago
The only reason cannabis cost $6-8 per gram was the illegality of it all. There were paid shocktroops(The Police) helping the criminals keep the price high. Grown on it's own it waould be a little more expensive than hay, something that is grown from seed in fields acres in size can be waay under $1. Some states have huge gluts. EVen the hybrid seeds where 10,000 seeds come from one large plant, each one female, each one prefertilized (feminized) https://shop.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/collections/feminized https://shop.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/collections/feminized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoflowering_cannabis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoflowering_cannabis So the growers can always beat the legal price because the goverment has encumbered the legal growers with red tape and other restrictions to help the illegal market continue to prosper. Remove the limits = $1 a gram or even less
- gdubs 7y ago
  I think you’re right about the market constraints, but in terms of a crop it’s more labor intensive — more like strawberries or tomatoes than hay. It’d be great to see a shift towards low input natural farming for cannabis, but at present it’s very input and labor intensive.
jasoneckert 7y ago
What I've noticed here in Ontario is that everyone is growing their own instead of buying it. Even my mother's book club is basically 15 minutes of book talk followed by 2 hours of people trading grower's tips.
- mikehodgson 7y ago
  It is insanely easy to do. I even made clones, and gave them to anyone that expressed interest in growing their own.

108 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Way too much illegal vs legal supply for legal demand to keep up. Same glut we're having in California, excepting half of that is caused directly by zoning laws and such making it almost impossible to open a legal dispensary despite it being legalized in the state.

teunispeters 7y ago
Speaking as a Canadian (and utterly uninterested in cannabis) - this is closest to accurate. Many jurisdictions are openly hostile Most parts of the country limited access, supply and transportation. It's hard to make a legal business work when most are still against it functioning. That said, it ain't dead yet.
edoceo 7y ago
This zoning issue has affected every state that moved to legal over the last five years and will, for sure, play the same in the states launching in 2020. Many millions have been spent on just legal wrangling to start a business
oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
This is changing quickly in Toronto at least. There were a bunch of gray market retail dispensaries which were way more convenient then ordering online and waiting a few days for delivery. OCS has launched a bunch of retail stores in the same areas.

pmoriarty 7y ago

Another reason for users turning to the black market that this article did not mention but that I've heard mentioned elsewhere is that Canada purportedly limits the potency of legal cannabis to relatively low levels, so the black market remains the only source of high potency cannabis.

posterboy 7y ago
purportedly? I know you mean hybrid strains bread for high potency. Prohibitting those if otherwise legal would require a legal basis. I thought one objective of legalization was to avoid laced product. Of course lacing weed to make it appear more potent and to be addictive is still forbidden. I have no source for that. Chalk it up as purported rumor. I've heard police test a crusher (weed grinder, whatchamacallit) positive for co-alkaloids and amphetamin in Germany.
- petre 7y ago
  Wine production from hybrid grapevine is also prohibited in the EU due to lesser reasons. The French largely influenced EU wine legislation. Only the rootstock is hybrid because it's disease and fungus resistant. https://winesvinesanalytics.com/news/article/201942/Will-Europe-Embrace-Hybrid-Wine-Grapes https://winesvinesanalytics.com/news/article/201942/Will-Eur... If you want to drink wine from hybrid grapes in the EU, you have to buy import (Moldova, North Macedonia etc) or homemade (usualy low quality) wine. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had to uproot most of their hybrids upon joining the EU. The same would happen to Macedonia.
  - posterboy 7y ago
    This is the tragedy of the commons. It's entirely reasonable that Designated Origin rules prescribe the ingredients and naming of products, e.g. for champagne. The problem is that varieties cross polinate through air and thus endanger--oh my gosh--the traditional wine bread. That much I can gather although the article doesn't say so. It's probably a little more complicated, sure. The article only says that hybrids from the 19th century were inferior; suppose taste wise. Which is a matter of taste, but likely reflected in sales. The upside is resistance to fungi and such.
    - petre 7y ago
      Yes, there are modern hybrids suitable for colder climates. The rules have been relaxed a bit since.

rublev 7y ago

My dealer pulls up within half an hour of texting them, with a full ounce they grew themselves. They know everything about the plant, and breed it for high THC. No delivery fee. Friendly. Great weed. No packaging. No bullshit. And great deals. Most dealer you buy from you won't be paying $280 ($10/h per O). Why would I ever go the "legal" route?

LemonAndroid 7y ago
You don't have a guilty conscience for putting people behind bars by your behavior?
- jungletek 7y ago
  Shouldn't you be asking the law makers and law enforcers that question? If you support such laws, shouldn't you ask yourself the same question? Illegal != immoral, after all.
  - LemonAndroid 7y ago
    I don't support these laws
- rublev 7y ago
  I'm in Canada. It's legal regardless.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Why would I ever go the "legal" route? Sure. I've had some excellent homegrown weed. Most parts of the US don't have access to this though. Even in the Bay Area there are places where the homegrown stuff is pretty low quality. If I go to a dispensary I can get a much greater selection, is consistent quality, and isn't grown in some destructive "farm" in a state park. The dispensary I go to takes online orders and has them ready in 10 minutes. I'm mostly into edibles these days. It was a bit disappointing when California capped the max THC per package (100 mg) -- but upside is pretty awesome. I can get a consistent product that's been tested to be a certain potency and free of pesticides and whatnot.

conductr 7y ago

Since 90s or so I’ve viewed Canada as quasi legal. Very low enforcement compared to my US experience. It seemed like a larger amount of homegrown and related technologies came out of Canada. Maybe I’m wrong. But if that is true, for consumer there’s really no advantage to going retail and lots of disadvantages as mentioned. So the “black market” sounds bad it’s really like a local artisan. Not some terrorist funding cartel run thing. Just your friend from down the road that shares his bounty.

FooHentai 7y ago
To flip the question around, what's the benefit of regulation? If none, then yeah, it's less weight to just not do it. But without regulation, presumably you get shady growers/dealers with products of dubious constitution. It looks like the price of legalization (in this case) is taxation and regulation. It should have been possible to legalize without either of these things, but that didn't happen. Gotta wonder why.
SuperPaintMan 7y ago
Very true, the RCMP in my hometown were rarely doing raids/busts or anything of the sort. Unless you we're trying to muck around with hard drugs or driving around in a hotboxed car. There were multiple parents/working class people with tables/setups in their garage. Come over for a cup of coffee, catch up about the kids, grab a few grams until next week! Nothing nefarious. On the consumer end the logistics is really the benefit of legal weed. You don't have to know a guy, play a game of telephone, wait around. Instead you can visit a professionally run store filled with people that know about the products and gear that is stocked. Makes it much easier to add into the routine right beside picking up groceries. That being said you pay a premium for that, and there's still black-market services doing Amazon style home delivery.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  driving around in a hotboxed car Speaking of things that don't raise an eyebrow in San Francisco.
- Scoundreller 7y ago

moltar 7y ago

You could also blame the government inefficiency in QC. The stores are government ran. The one in Montreal on St Catherine has permanent bread lines at any time of the day. Some of the product is sold out first thing in the morning and you need to arrive an hour before opening. It’s like Soviet Union of weed.

koheripbal 7y ago
Quebec is always a special case of bureaucracy and government mismanagement. Remember that all liquor stores in Quebec are government stores too. I suspect they'll start distributing them there - possibly dependent upon neighborhood approval. I'll note that the neighborhood I'm in - the older folks are not happy about the new constant pot smell around.
- moltar 7y ago
  In ON the liquor is also controlled by LCBO, yet marijuana was given to the private sector. I guess they learned their lesson with liquor control.
  - Deinumite 7y ago
    I wouldn't say so. The original plan was to have the LCBO handle sales of marijuana as well. The Liberal government that was drafting this plan lost the provincial election and the Conservative government scrapped that it. So it nobody learned any lessons, we just had interesting timing with our election.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Sorta. The retailers still have to buy from the provincial monopoly warehouse. Unless that's been changed. It changes everytime we sneeze.
  - mynegation 7y ago
    What is the lesson though? I have zero problems with LCBO.
7y ago

sysbin 7y ago

I’m under the impression that the market will grow with time. The product happens to be great enough for my standards. The obvious downside is the requirement from a person needing to explore the dosage intake themselves and contrary to how everyone can dive into coffee for a different type of high. I’m skeptical of the price being where it should be because I think it’s too high resulting in the profits being worse then what could be achieved. Interestingly all the high THC strains are usually all sold out online in my province’s store but I think most people that would enjoy the benefits from the high would prefer a low to medium THC or even CBD strain. Edibles are in my opinion dangerous and I’m curious to see how that will likely make no difference in sales. I think what needs to happen is the ability to micro dose safely without any unpleasantness and be affordable. Vaping can make it affordable but dosing isn’t as accurate as I believe it should be.

Zombieball 7y ago

In downtown Vancouver the government website only lists one “legal” cannabis store yet a quick google search shows +20 listings: https://justice.gov.bc.ca/cannabislicensing/map https://justice.gov.bc.ca/cannabislicensing/map I would suspect that many people purchasing on the black market are in fact purchasing from stores (not just “their weed guy”) but don’t realize the store is not properly licensed.

klyrs 7y ago
Don't trust that; unlicensed shops have been closing down much faster than google's been keeping up. Source: I'm a customer that preferred the unlicensed shops because the product and pricing was better. I was never ignorant about their legal status. In licensed shops you get a very limited selection and typically, a low inventory. They've got little sniffer pods where you're supposed to be able to smell the product but it's nothing like the old shops where they'd have a canister where you could really get a good whiff. Packaging requirements mean that there's a limited selection of quantities; and typically, the packaging is at least 3x bigger (and significantly more expensive) than previously. My preferred purchasing pattern is to buy a single gram of a few unfamiliar strains, test them out, and then come back in a few days to get an ounce of the best one. With this pattern, I only need to go to the store a few times a year. With the new shops, they don't carry single grams, and you can't save on packaging by buying in bulk -- if you want an ounce, you'd have to buy 10 of the 3.5g canisters. I was pro-legalization for obvious reasons but now I wish I had a good black-market hookup.

kresten 7y ago

I’m guessing there’s a market if it’s available and convenient to buy and of good quality and reasonably priced.

truebosko 7y ago

The lack of edibles for the initial launch is a big blocker for casual adoption IMO. As per the visuals, cannabis use has not grown dramatically since legalization. Oils and raw bud are simply not as accessible as a bar of chocolate. I imagine that won't cause a significant bump either, but at the least, it opens up the market to the casual user -- which simply has not happened yet in Canada.

dpflan 7y ago

It seems that convenience is an important factor; access to retail in the most populous province is low, so alternative means of access to the good are still in favor (i.e. black market). Purport the bubble is bursting after examining the system when it is functioning in a less constrained way that rivals the current system (i.e. black market). "This is especially true in Ontario, Canada's most populous province. Red tape and a cap on the number of cannabis retail outlets have made rollout slow. Retail licenses were awarded by lottery, and the province held the number of licenses at 24, to serve a population of 14.5m." "In December, the Ontario government announced that after a slow and fitful start, the province will open itself up to more cannabis retail. It will do away with the lottery system, the cap on the number of private stores and cancel some pre-qualification requirements." List of Canadian Provinces by Population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and...

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
Is it even constitutional for a province to sandbag a federal regulation like this? Retail marijuana sales in Ontario are still effectively illegal.
- herge 7y ago
  Because it is unconstitutional for the federal government to but into commercial law that is not under it's purview?
  - derefr 7y ago
    Provinces aren’t states. The powers of the Canadian provincial governments are delegated to them from the Canadian federal government, not the other way around. Canada does not have a constitution that constrains federal power, since it was not formed by the uniting of states wary of federal power, but rather the uniting of colonies which all considered themselves to be under the aegis of a single sovereignty (Britain). Fun fact: rather than each province having a plain-old governor, Canada (as any Commonwealth country) has one Governor General for the whole country; and then each province has a Lieutenant Governor, also appointed by the Queen, to serve under the Governor General.

dumbfoundded 7y ago

I don't think it burst because of the Canadian market. It burst due to the Canadian LPs building out infrastructure like there was going to be this giant international market in Europe and the US. The Canadians haven't been able to penetrate either market. The US seems to be handling itself and the tiny legal international cannabis export/import market is being targeted by Colombia aggressively. The Canadians only ever had the advantage of first mover and now that legal barrier is collapsing. What else grows in Canada? Check out these pics from Colombia: https://medellinguru.com/colombia-cannabis/ https://medellinguru.com/colombia-cannabis/ In Colombia, you can grow year round with only tarps up to catch the rain.

Thriptic 7y ago

You see the same problems in the American market too. Contrast the following experiences. To buy legally, I have to go trek out to my local dispensary, sit outside for 30 min - 1 hour, hope they have what I want when I get inside (no way to check in advance as they have no inventory management), pay 100% more than black market value per quantity, deal with ridiculously arbitrary restrictions on how much and what I am allowed to buy, I have to pay with cash, and I receive product with low potency. If I want to buy illegally, I can call ping my friend, they tell me the whole inventory in advance, I tell them what I want, they bring it to me for free, I get very high quality product, it's very cheap, and we hang out for a few hours. Which experience do you think most people choose?

tashoecraft 7y ago
Legal. I’m not a heavy user, but legal has been the amazing. I can pick up edibles of known amounts of thc. The sales people are friendly and knowledgeable. Buying illegally was always sketchy, never knowing if someone would show up, how good the product was, if it actually was indica or sativa or hybrid, it was always just “good shit”, which wasn’t always true. Prices feel the same and it’s defiantly not lower potency in my experience.
- yocheckitdawg 7y ago
  I agree, I am in Australia so no legal weed here but I would happily pay more to be able to buy edibles as well as know exactly what I am buying and what the dosages are.
- Cougher 7y ago
  Not to mention that illegal growers don't care what poisons they douse the plants with as long as the insects die before they can eat them. Then the users smoke this crap. I don't know that we've yet seen the healthcare outcome of this.
mikewhy 7y ago
Conversely, in Nova Scotia, I can go to my closest dispensary, wait about 5 minutes in line (inside a surprisingly posh store), pay with a simple tap, and I'm on my way. The biggest issue here is the waste from packaging.

conchy 7y ago

This story is really a parable for government involvement in anything vs. the free market.

Synaesthesia 7y ago
How about monopolies?

hi5eyes 7y ago

another more hn reason why would i bother putting my info into a govt database of people consuming products that are illegal in most areas of the world? my friend recently got banned from the us for having a small amount for personal consumption would rather get higher quality/better priced product from friends that get shipped to me at my convenience than deal with the headache of legal weed

flycaliguy 7y ago
Just for clarification, your friend tried to cross into the US with weed?

aurizon 7y ago

The only reason cannabis cost $6-8 per gram was the illegality of it all. There were paid shocktroops(The Police) helping the criminals keep the price high. Grown on it's own it waould be a little more expensive than hay, something that is grown from seed in fields acres in size can be waay under $1. Some states have huge gluts. EVen the hybrid seeds where 10,000 seeds come from one large plant, each one female, each one prefertilized (feminized) https://shop.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/collections/feminized https://shop.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/collections/feminized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoflowering_cannabis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoflowering_cannabis So the growers can always beat the legal price because the goverment has encumbered the legal growers with red tape and other restrictions to help the illegal market continue to prosper. Remove the limits = $1 a gram or even less

gdubs 7y ago
I think you’re right about the market constraints, but in terms of a crop it’s more labor intensive — more like strawberries or tomatoes than hay. It’d be great to see a shift towards low input natural farming for cannabis, but at present it’s very input and labor intensive.

jasoneckert 7y ago

What I've noticed here in Ontario is that everyone is growing their own instead of buying it. Even my mother's book club is basically 15 minutes of book talk followed by 2 hours of people trading grower's tips.

mikehodgson 7y ago
It is insanely easy to do. I even made clones, and gave them to anyone that expressed interest in growing their own.