Canadian News Source
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/philpott-un-marijuana-legislation-legalize-1.3544554" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/philpott-un-marijuana-legisl...</a><p>I love that they picked this day to make an announcement.
One thing that I am disappointed in is that I wish the Liberal government first decriminalized marijuana.<p>For one thing, decriminalization is easy to do. Simply revoke the current criminal laws. The bill would be passed quite quickly. Which would then buy time to figure out a bill for legalization.<p>Why is this important? Despite popular belief, simple possession laws ARE upheld in Canada, but the people charged are disproportionately minorities and poor/homeless people. IIRC, there were 40 000+ criminal charges for simple possession last year in Canada. That means thousands of citizens who are now burdened with a criminal record, making job searches difficult and border crossings into the US.<p>So while laws for legalizing pot are getting figured out in Parliament, more people keep getting locked up for simple possession.
In Australia "the Victorian government, is introducing laws in December to allow families access to medicinal cannabis in exceptional circumstances. "<p>You have to be genuinely, deeply sick in Australia to be allowed to puff a joint. It's like living in the 1950's. So strange that Australia follows the world so quickly towards becoming more conservative and is so incredibly slow to become less conservative, even when our cultural leader, the U.S.A. is headed that way.<p><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-children-with-epilepsy-to-take-part-in-medical-marijuana-trial-20160202-gmkate.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-children-with-ep...</a>
How does this effect the supply chain? Let me re-phrase that, are we still criminalizing the supply side? If so, we're just exporting our violence south of the USA border.
Very big hiccup that this policy might possibly run up against: the American border. Given the 280,326,500,000 USD in exports that Canada sends to the US [0], even a minor disruption at the border could wreak devastation on Canada's economy. If an American administration even hinted at an increase in border wait times due to newly enhanced searches as a result of legalization, any Canadian federal government would have to think very hard about the pros vs the cons of legalizing pot.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c1220.html#2015" rel="nofollow">http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c1220.html#2015</a>
I'm curious if all those decriminalizations and legalizations in various states & countries are having an impact on Netherlands' tourism.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...</a><p>How do they get out of this? I've read that this is a big holdup in US federal drug law reform.
Is there any study on the reduction of young consumers (rebel/taboo incentives) and reclaimed resources for police forces (less time dealing with petty to medium weed issues) ?
Perhaps it's now time to look at investing in some of the existing Canadian medicinal cannabis producers. Like cannabis or not, it's here to stay and becoming more legitimized with each passing day. The question is, who's going to supply it? It's going to be regulated and knowing Canada, it will be regulated thoroughly.
There is nothing great about smoking weed but something seriously bad about jailing people for smoking, possessing or growing. That is the reason why I support marijuana legalization but I dont think Canada wants to decriminalize Marijuana.
Other news sources[1] are reporting it as "legalize", not decriminalize.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/20/canada-marijuana-legaliza_n_9738222.html?ncid=tweetlnkcahpmg00000002" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/20/canada-marijuana-leg...</a>
A well-timed announcement for April 20th. ;)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)</a>
I'm a little bit worried about this, actually.<p>I've been to Vancouver and it wasn't a very pretty sight.<p>The amount of homelessness and crime is 10 times more what I've seen anywhere else in North America.<p>There's an entire section (several blocks) in the Downtown area that's full of homeless people and the streets smell like urine.<p>Shops even in areas far away from downtown put posters on their windows saying they don't hold cash overnight. i.e. please thieves don't break in at night because you will not find any cash.<p>At the same time, Marijuana seemed like it was very easy to obtain, and <i>for free</i> too! There plenty of shops that give it away for free "for medical purposes". Some of them even advertise that they have a doctor who will prescribe it for you in case you don't already have a prescription!<p>I know correlation is not necessarily causation but easy access to Marijuana was the only significant difference between Vancouver and all the other cities I've visited in North America.