Similar to how the brewery cartel formed in Ontario, government-issued licenses and regulations on cannabis are serving the well-connected at the expense of everyone else.
It’s kind of like communism, where one succeeds not by offering a higher quality good or service, but by knowing the right people in charge.
This is what’s happening on the cannabis front, where the goal is, and always has been, “to keep it out of the hands of children” via legalization, restriction, and regulation.
In the same way that strict rules on alcohol haven’t averted underage drinking, Justin’s plans will also fall flat for the simple reason that governments cannot prevent markets from forming.
Kids and adults alike will always break arbitrary rules.
But first, the licensed producer cartel the Harper government set up will flood the market with their cannabis.
According to Health Canada, the amount of cannabis sold to medical patients has steadily increased during the past year – but this is dwarfed by the amount of cannabis the LPs have actually grown.
The LPs are stockpiling cannabis and waiting for Justin to announce legalization. Once Trudeau gives the nod of approval, over five million grams and counting will flood the market.
Cannabis may drop to $1 a gram like many activists have hoped for — activists that aren’t necessarily farmers and likely don’t understand basic economics (or maybe they do and that’s the point).
When LP cannabis floods the market, the B.C. Bud market will be impacted. Especially if the RCMP continue to raid dispensaries and target growers, while politicians and unions subject the public to “health and safety” propaganda.
This isn’t free and fair competition for cannabis sales, this is using the government’s monopoly on force to coercively determine the outcome.
Farmers may be still able to compete with corporate weed if a connoisseur industry is promoted, but a one-size-fits-all regulatory apparatus originating from Ottawa or from the provincial legislators won’t suit the needs of B.C. Bud.
The longer Justin waits the more cannabis the LPs accumulate.
“Prince of Pot” Marc Emery wrote that “the LPs produce great cannabis,” but this is not a situation where “the more cannabis the better.” It’s a situation where a corporate oligarchy can grow at the expense of the B.C. entrepreneurs who remain “illegal” but were here long before the LPs entered the scene.
This authentic middle class of farmers, extraction crews, dispensaries, glass-blowers and the like, have survived in spite of state prohibition and enforcement.
What about the dichotomy between medical and recreational? Is that irrelevant all of a sudden?
The LPs are supposed to be purely medical, hence their sterile facilities, but their posturing only leads to one conclusion – anticipation for sales in the legal, recreational market.
They’ve admitted to this fact.
But it’s a mould issue! We can’t have sketchy producers supplying the market with mouldy cannabis! We need the heavy hand of government intervention…
Let me stop you right there.
Taxation is not a sustainable path to prosperity. Bureaucratic management cannot be checked by economic calculation.
“The ultimate basis of an all around bureaucratic system is violence.”
In contrast, entrepreneurs, relying on consensual relations with their customers and without a legal monopoly, always perform superior work – and that includes keeping mould off your cannabis.
Just look around – the Allard trial put the mould issue to a test, and the Crown’s accusation failed because consumers don’t want mould on their cannabis.
Anyone who profits from mouldy cannabis doesn’t profit for long.
In the sense that regulatory services are in demand, putting the state in charge is like having the fox guard the henhouse.
It’s how you end up with a market of only LPs or a beer cartel in Ontario.