Should patients with compromised immune systems purchase their medical cannabis from a known source, one with extensive regulations to ensure a safe, clean product?
That’s a decision I’d leave to the individual patient.
Health Canada disagrees, but by now it should be clear — no matter how the federal government believes Canadians should act, people will make their own choices.
For a “recreational” consumer, or a patient who prefers a non-licensed producer cannabis supply, there is nothing wrong with cannabis sold at dispensaries.
As laid out in a Globe & Mail report, most cannabis sold at dispensaries meets or exceeds Health Canada’s standards. This cannabis is no more dangerous than fruits and vegetables you buy from a farmer’s market.
Perhaps Health Canada should release a statement condemning the nation’s farmer’s markets?
Perhaps they should declare that the only safe produce is from one of Canada’s large grocery store conglomerates?
People would rightly take offence to such a statement. So why is it different with cannabis?
Is it because of the herb’s psychoactive component? What if Health Canada released a statement condemning small craft breweries?
“But this is about proper regulation!” some might argue.
True, if Health Canada’s mandate is to save Canadians from themselves, then it makes sense for the federal bureaucracy to denounce any product outside of its control, whether it be cannabis, “contraband” cigarettes, or food smuggled in from abroad.
So I can’t expect the bureaucrats of Health Canada to see through their own lies, since, to quote socialist Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
But, for the rest of the population, including cannabis connoisseurs that may otherwise accept the government’s pretence of knowledge, there should be no problem with an “unregulated” supply of cannabis.
Our civilization is the result of purposeful action — men and women of all ages and backgrounds cooperating by engaging in mutual exchange.
The success of the “West” also came from our legal system. A rule of law that protected commerce from undue government interference, where, at least for white men, private property was sacrosanct.
But, instead of extending these rights to women and minority groups, we’ve taken a “progressive” step backward by promoting government bureaucracy at the expense of free markets.
War and central banking are two disastrous results of this parasitical system, but the federal government’s fear-mongering about a cannabis supply it has no control over is another example of what happens when governments are given the benefit of the doubt.
If the federal government wishes to interfere with the consensual decisions of buyers and sellers, then the burden of proof is on them.
Where is the proof that people are getting sick from contaminated cannabis?
Governments offer goods and services that apparently can’t or shouldn’t fetch a price on the market. In what world does quality assurance fall under this category?
Absent government’s ineffective monopoly, competing accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory licensing and regulation.
Absent a “national standard,” consumers would make more discriminating choices about who they purchased from.
Absent government’s monopoly regulatory “services,” the costs of doing business would fall. The free market would essentially force consumers to act in accordance with their own — rather than the government’s — risk assessment.
Competing entrepreneurs, to safeguard against liability suits and to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees.
Health Canada simply isn’t needed. Not now, not ever, and certainly, not in the legal cannabis market.