Cops in charge of legalization.
Is this what you voted for?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has appointed Bill Blair, formerly of the Toronto Police, to head the legalization front. The same Bill Blair that led the Toronto Police during the G20, overseeing the use of excessive force, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and a violation of basic civil rights.
And that’s not opinion — every independent review of the G20 policing hasn’t exactly been favourable to Blair’s leadership.
Yet, this is the guy Toronto Mayor John Tory is calling the “ideal person” to oversee the legalization scheme.
“It’s a very complicated matter,” claimed Tory. “Exactly how do you change the law? How do you distribute marijuana? You know making sure that safety is kept at the forefront.”
But it isn’t a complicated matter, all the feds need to do is remove cannabis from the criminal code. Distributing cannabis is already occurring in dispensaries and on the street, so to make sure safety is kept at the forefront would be to allow free and fair markets to work without intervention.
Cannabis doesn’t need to be regulated by the barrel of a gun.
Everything we take for granted in modern society is a result of free markets, that is, voluntary exchange and respect for private property. The computer you’re reading this on wasn’t the result of government planning, and despite the military origins of the internet, it took entrepreneurs to discover the potential of this medium.
Yet many Canadians are still duped into believing only a monopoly of force can achieve humanitarian ends. That state coercion beats free and fair markets because of “the children” or public health and safety concerns.
As if the state could achieve those goals with any efficiency.
Case in point: the man who’s job it was to, among other things, enforce the drug war is now the point man for what legalization will look like in Canada.
He told the Sun: “If our intention is to manage the risks, keep it out of the hands of our kids, and get organized crime out of it … then we need to regulate it,” adding “Clearly, criminal sanction is not keeping it out of the hands of kids.”
It’s the same mantra being repeated from every public official in the Trudeau government.
Why exactly are Ontario voices deciding what the cannabis market will look like?
Cannabis is, largely, a British Columbia-based industry, and, just as each province has its own alcohol model, British Columbia should be able to tell Ottawa to screw off.
This happened last time a Trudeau was in power. Only it wasn’t cannabis, it was the nationalization of oil. And it wasn’t British Columbia but Alberta.
So when Trudeau said, “Canada is back,” he must have meant the pompous attitude of leftist pseudo-intellectuals in Ottawa, who believe the solution to every problem is more taxation and increased control for the federal government.
The drug war is big money for law enforcement and they’re not likely to give up on this cash-cow so easily.
By appointing a former cop to lead legalization, Trudeau is telling the BC Bud industry that they are still considered organized crime, that the licensed producers — with their former-cop security guards, restricted distribution model, Health Canada-approval and security apparatuses that will ensure no child ever steps foot into a facility — will remain the only legal suppliers.
Do you really think the former Toronto police chief will allow people to grow and sell their produce in free and fair farmers’ markets?
Do you really believe that this former Toronto cop, this single person, should have absolute authority on what happens to the millions of farmers, dispensary owners, extraction crews and many others in the BC Bud community?
Let the Eastern bastards smoke LP weed, but keep your hands off our BC Bud.