[URBAN NOTE] "It's reefer madness all over again"

[rfmcdonald]

NOW Toronto shares Christian Mittelstaedt's article critical of current criminal campaigns against marijuana use and possession, in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada.

All I can say is that this should have been done long ago. As for the matter of dispensaries, the city has an obvious right to regulate businesses.

The war on the drugs is supposed to be coming to an end in Canada as far as marijuana is concerned, but you wouldn’t know it from the number of pot charges still making their way through Toronto’s Old City Hall courthouse. Or, for that matter, Mayor John Tory's threat to shut down what he describes as the "alarming" number of medical marijuana dispensaries cropping up around the city. It's reefer madness all over again, even as the federal government has promised to establish a regime for legalized weed by next spring.

On a recent morning at Old City Hall, 40 people were scheduled to appear on various drug possession charges. The accused varied from drug dealers to a 19 year-old from North York with his parents in tow.

[. . .]

Marijuana use has become increasingly mainstream in Canada. Prospective growers are looking to get a head start in the cannabis industry when it's legalized, with dispensaries popping up in Toronto. Now those too face legal sanction after operating in a legal grey zone.

The city had reportedly been working on regulations for dispensaries. In Vancouver, for example, dispensaries pay fees and can only operate in certain proximity to schools and other dispensaries. But last week Tory dropped a bomb, threatening a crackdown on the operations and to levy fines of up to $50,000. The city's medical officer of health, David McKeown, also weighed in on the issue, calling for strict regulation of dispensaries when marijuana is legalized.

The crux of the government’s legalization argument is that it will keep money out of the hands of criminals. The problem is that as we wait to get there, organized crime is not the group feeling most of the burn – it’s ordinary Canadians receiving criminal records for minor offences, and the taxpayers footing the bill for enforcement and charges making their way through court.