The red flags ahead of Canada’s marijuana legalization

The government has decided to limit the supply of legal marijuana to a small number of big, licensed providers, rather than inviting erstwhile illegal providers into the market subject to rigorous controls
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Monday, April 23, 2018

The central question facing the Liberal government as it seeks to fulfill its 2015 campaign promise to “legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana” is: Can they do it without making the situation worse? The current regime has a lot of problems. It doesn’t keep pot away from kids, it puts large profits into the hands of organized crime and it traps a lot of people into the criminal-justice system for what is, for the most part, a victimless crime. From that perspective, legalization would seem to be a no-brainer. But it is always possible for even the most well-intentioned government to make things worse, and as Bill C-45 moves closer to becoming law, a number of warning flares are starting to go off.