In the Liberal budget (which is about $20 billion more in spending than Justin promised during the election) there is a bit about cannabis legalization.
The budget proposes $9.6 million over five years, and $1 million every year thereafter, for “public education programming and surveillance activities.”
Surveillance activities? What the actual fuck?
No wonder Bill Blair said legalization was going to require more police powers. The Liberals have been adamant from day one that legalization will stamp out the black market.
And of course, they aren’t going to do that by legalizing the non-violent “criminals.” There will be no peaceful coming to the market for BC Bud. There will be no end to the fear of persecution.
The Liberals are taking a page from Harper’s playbook and continuing the drug war against BC Bud and other non-violent cannabis-producing Canadian connoisseurs.
Surveillance means ramping up the drug war against the craft producers.
Surveillance means everyone loses their civil liberties so the cops can continue to shut down any cannabis production, investment, and consumption that hasn’t gone through Trudeau’s LP scheme.
Surveillance means that those who have given up their liberty for security receive, nor deserve, either.
The Liberals never promised to legalize because the drug war is unjust or that we are self-owning human beings. No, Justin promised to legalize based on appeals to emotion, literal logical fallacies, and now we are paying the price.
But Caleb, you might say, the task force recommended a craft industry, and even bad legalization is better than fully functional prohibition.
But this argument misses the mark. What the task force recommended can be ignored, as well, the “craft industry” as defined by the tax-and-regulate interventionist Liberal government need not include the current growers or anyone with a cannabis criminal record.
And there’s no guarantee that the “craft industry” as defined by Liberal standards will be any less severe than the LP regulations. It could just downsize the greenhouse requirements from large square footage to smaller plots.
It’s already annoying that the Liberals claim to support the middle class by raising their taxes.
It’s beyond forgivable for Justin to harp about the “young people” while borrowing from their future to spend on today’s boondoggles and other wasteful “infrastructure” projects.
And this $9.6 million toward cannabis “education, programming and surveillance activities” is a giant slap in the face to those who fought so hard for legalization only to have the word co-opted by the corporate puppet that is the Justin Trudeau brand.
But the former-Liberal supporting cannabis connoisseurs should have seen this coming. As I and many others pointed out, the Liberals promised harsher penalties for those who fell outside their regulatory system.
Basically, the same policy Harper promised. Continue with the corporate LP scheme and install harsher punishments for BC Bud, the original homesteaders of Canada’s cannabis industry.