tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/weed-40318/articlesWeed – The Conversation2024-01-10T22:10:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208512024-01-10T22:10:05Z2024-01-10T22:10:05ZTime for a Weed-Free January? How cannabis users could benefit from a ‘dry’ month<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/time-for-a-weed-free-january-how-cannabis-users-could-benefit-from-a-dry-month" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>By now, most are familiar with the idea of Dry January, a voluntary month without alcohol that follows a month when many drink more than usual.</p>
<p>The idea of <a href="https://time.com/6552262/dry-january-origins-alcohol-drinking/">Dry January</a> started in the United Kingdom in 2012, and has become popular internationally since then. The point is to use a date on the calendar that traditionally prompts resolutions to encourage drinkers to make a month-long commitment to giving their bodies a break and resetting their attitudes and habits in a healthier way for the rest of the year and possibly beyond.</p>
<p>For those who use cannabis, the idea of taking a month off is also worth considering, whether it’s January or not.</p>
<h2>1 in 4 use cannabis</h2>
<p>Canadians are among the world’s biggest consumers of cannabis, especially since <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/">it was legalized</a> in 2018. Prior to legalization, about 15 per cent of adults used cannabis once a year or more. Today, about <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2022-summary.html">one in four</a> adult Canadians use cannabis once a year or more, with a higher concentration among young adults.</p>
<p>Frequency of use varies widely, but there is a sizable group of people who are daily or near-daily users — <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2022-summary.html">about 25 per cent</a>. Within that group, nearly three-quarters report <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2023006/article/00001-eng.htm">impaired control over their cannabis use</a>, a key feature of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/health-effects/addiction.html">cannabis use disorder</a>, the medical definition of cannabis addiction.</p>
<p>Though daily use and cannabis use disorder are not identical, daily use is nonetheless a reasonable way to identify people who are more likely to experience negative consequences and might benefit from taking a break. </p>
<p>Beyond frequency, the amount of cannabis one uses and the concentration of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/about.html">THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis,</a> are important considerations in the likelihood of experiencing harms. Many of the risks and harms from cannabis scale to the amount of THC consumed, so it’s not just a matter of consuming less frequently.</p>
<h2>The benefits of a weed-free month</h2>
<p>A Weed-Free January could do more good than cannabis users may realize. Any month will do, of course, but January is traditionally a time for resolutions and fresh starts, so it may be the most natural time to cut out weed.</p>
<p>Based on the existing evidence, regular cannabis users could expect to experience a number of positive physical and lifestyle changes from a 31-day pause.</p>
<p>Among them:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Resetting one’s tolerance for cannabis. In response to cannabis use, the body’s <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-endocannabinoid-system-essential-and-mysterious-202108112569">endocannabinoid system</a> adapts over time, causing users to develop tolerance. Indeed, for heavy users, unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal also follow these adaptations, although cannabis withdrawal is not life-threatening like alcohol withdrawal. Users could expect that taking a month off would be enough for the body to revert to its natural set-points.</p></li>
<li><p>Clearing the mental cobwebs. Cannabis use is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.002">reduced cognitive functioning</a>, especially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206820109">heavy persistent use</a>. Even short breaks from cannabis have been found to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.0335">reduce cognitive consequences</a>, and a month of abstinence has been shown to return cognitive functioning to the level of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.58.10.909">non-cannabis users</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Giving your lungs a break. It’s well established that inhaling combusted cannabis smoke is bad for the lungs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2023.107494">in a number of ways</a>, which may be one of the reasons cannabis has been linked to <a href="https://newsroom.heart.org/news/marijuana-use-linked-with-increased-risk-of-heart-attack-heart-failure">heart attack and stroke risk</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Developing other habits and routines that take advantage of a clearer mind, such as sports, reading and sober socializing. A rich repertoire of activities without substance use is an important lifestyle counterbalance.</p></li>
<li><p>Saving money. Cannabis is not cheap and adds up quickly if you consume daily. A Weed-Free January could save hundreds of dollars.</p></li>
<li><p>Taking stock of whether you may have a problem. Cannabis use disorder is real and can have serious consequences. A weed-free month can provide a chance to do a self-check and see how hard it is to stop. If quitting for a month is impossible (or feels like torture), it may be time to talk to a health professional. <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/current-treatments-for-cannabis-use-disorder">Effective treatments do exist for cannabis use disorder</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Importantly, many people have authorizations to use medical cannabis to manage a variety of conditions and this is not to suggest that those individuals should abruptly stop for a month, just as it would be foolhardy to recommend an annual abstinence from cholesterol, blood-pressure, or other medications. For medical cannabis patients who think it might be beneficial to take a break, a chat with their authorizing physician or family doctor would be in order.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, if you use recreational cannabis regularly, especially daily, having a Weed-Free January could be both good for your health and a good way to promote other healthy resolutions. A real win-win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James MacKillop receives research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Health Canada, the National Institutes of Health, and other non-profit funders. He is a principal and senior scientist in Beam Diagnostics, Inc., a technology transfer startup. No Beam products or services are related to this topic. MacKillop has previously consulted to Clairvoyant Therapeutics, Inc. </span></em></p>A Weed-Free January could do more good than cannabis users may realize. Regular cannabis users could expect to experience a number of positive physical and lifestyle changes from a 31-day pause.James MacKillop, Peter Boris Chair in Addictions Research; Director, Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research; Director, Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research; Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162812023-12-27T11:11:04Z2023-12-27T11:11:04ZAn African history of cannabis offers fascinating and heartbreaking insights – an expert explains<p>When I tell people that I research cannabis, I sometimes receive a furtive gesture that implies and presumes: “We’re both stoners!”, as if two members of a secret society have met. </p>
<p>Other times, I receive looks of concern. “You don’t want to be known as the guy who studies marijuana,” a professional colleague once counselled. Lastly, some respond with blank stares: “Why do academics spend time on such frivolous topics?” </p>
<p>I’ve learned that all these attitudes reflect ignorance about the plant, which few people have learned about except through popular media or their own experiences with it.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0394-6_601.pdf">study cannabis</a>, but I’m more broadly interested in how people and plants interact. I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=192935">obscure plants</a> and more widely known ones, such as the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01751.x">African baobab</a>. </p>
<p>Cannabis is in another category, being one of the world’s most famous and widespread plants. Yet it’s the one for which people most commonly question my research motivations.</p>
<p>Cannabis has a truly global history associated with a wide range of uses and meanings. The plant evolved in central Asia millions of years ago. Across Eurasia, humans began using cannabis seeds and fibre more than 12,000 years ago, and by 5,000 years ago, people in south Asia had learned to use cannabis as an edible drug. It arrived in east Africa over 1,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Cannabis has been under global prohibition for most of the last century, which has stunted understanding of the people-plant relationship. Africa, Africans and people of the African diaspora have had crucial roles in the plant’s history that are mostly forgotten. </p>
<p>I want people to learn about cannabis history for four reasons. First, understanding its historical uses can help identify potential new uses. Second, understanding why people have valued cannabis can improve how current societies manage it. Third, understanding how people have used cannabis illuminates African influences on global culture. Finally, understanding how people are profiting from cannabis exposes inequities within the global economy.</p>
<h2>Medicinal potential</h2>
<p>The African history of cannabis highlights its medicinal potential, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">topic of growing interest</a>. </p>
<p>Advocates of medical cannabis often justify their interest by telling tales of the plant’s past. Yet the tales they tell – notably in medical journals – have been problematic. They are only about social <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1606635031000135604">elites</a> and are mostly untrue. </p>
<p>The African past is absent from this medical literature, even though historical observers reported how Africans used cannabis in contexts that justify current interest in its medicinal potential. </p>
<p>For instance, in the 1840s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oYUVAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA437&dq=great+promoter+of+exhilaration+of+spirits,+and+a+sovereign+remedy+against+all+complaints&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi65on7l4WCAxX0KFkFHbwjBb4Q6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q=exhilaration%20of%20spirits&f=false">a British physician reported</a> that central African people liberated from slave ships considered the plant drug </p>
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<p>a great promoter of exhilaration of spirits, and a sovereign remedy against all complaints. </p>
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<p>These were emaciated, traumatised survivors. Their experience justifies <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/can.2020.0056">exploring cannabis as a potential treatment</a> for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and other conditions.</p>
<h2>Exploitative labour</h2>
<p>We need to understand why people value cannabis to identify and address <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395902000828">social processes that may produce drug use</a>. </p>
<p>Africans have <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-8822-5_10">valued cannabis</a> for centuries, though it’s difficult to know all the uses it had, because most weren’t documented. Despite its limits, the historical record clearly shows that people used cannabis as a stimulant and painkiller in association with hard labour. </p>
<p>Many European travellers observed their porters smoking cannabis before setting off each day. A <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IMwNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA257&dq=affirm+that+it+wakes+them+up+and+warms+their+bodies,+so+that+they+are+ready+to+start+up+with+alacrity&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlre3am4WCAxWVEGIAHfJZAmQQ6AF6BAgQEAI#v=onepage&q=alacrity&f=false">Portuguese in Angola stated</a> that the porters: </p>
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<p>affirm that it wakes them up and warms their bodies, so that they are ready to start up with alacrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Because labourers valued cannabis, many overseers did too. </p>
<p>Cannabis drug use remains associated with social marginalisation in contexts from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332640.2017.1300972">Morocco</a> to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395918300124">Nigeria</a>. </p>
<p>The pan-African experience suggests using it is not a moral failing of users but is – at least in part – symptomatic of exploitation and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.13244">inequity</a>. </p>
<h2>Africa’s place in global culture</h2>
<p>I also study cannabis to understand how African knowledge has shaped global culture. Cannabis travelled as an <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2568024731?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true">element of exploitative labour relationships</a> that carried people around the world, including chattel slavery, indentured service and wage slavery. There is strong evidence that <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana">psychoactive cannabis crossed the Atlantic with Africans</a>. </p>
<p>Oral histories from Brazil, Jamaica, Liberia and Sierra Leone tell that enslaved central Africans carried cannabis. In 1840s Gabon, a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ewUBImRf6IMC&pg=PA420&dq=%22intending+to+plant+them+in+the+country+to+which+he+should+be+sold%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbzsOhn4WCAxW5F1kFHZw1Bv0Q6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q=%22intending%20to%20plant%20them%20in%20the%20country%20to%20which%20he%20should%20be%20sold%22&f=false">French-American traveller observed</a> a man </p>
<blockquote>
<p>carefully preserving (seeds), intending to plant them in the country to which he should be sold. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The people who transported seeds shaped our modern language. Around the Atlantic, many terms for cannabis trace to central Africa, including the global word marijuana, derived from Kimbundu <em>mariamba</em>. </p>
<p>Further, the most common modern use of cannabis – as a smoked drug – was an African innovation. Prehistoric people in eastern Africa <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/719224">invented smoking pipes</a>. After the plant arrived from south Asia, eastern Africans discovered that smoking was a more efficient way to consume cannabis compared with edible forms of the drug. Notably, all water pipes – hookahs, bongs, shishas and so on – trace ultimately to African precedents. </p>
<h2>Drug policy reforms</h2>
<p>Finally, understanding the plant’s African past illuminates inequities within the global economy. </p>
<p>Drug policy reforms worldwide have opened lucrative, legal markets for cannabis. Businesses are feverishly competing for wealth, and governments are eagerly seeking new revenue sources. The rush to profit has enabled businesses from wealthy countries <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/echogeo/17599">to gain power in poorer countries</a>. </p>
<p>Most African countries that have enacted drug-policy reforms – notable exceptions being South Africa and Morocco – did so only after foreign businesses paid for cannabis farming licences. These had always been possible under existing laws, though the governments had never made them available. </p>
<p>These drug-policy reforms don’t meaningfully extend to citizens of African countries. Licensing fees are either unknown or unaffordable for most citizens of the countries that have allowed commercial farming, including Zimbabwe, Uganda, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini and the Democratic Republic of Congo. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">Cannabis policy changes in Africa are welcome. But small producers are the losers</a>
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<p>The countries that have allowed licensed production <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/southerneye/2014/03/30/binga-villagers-want-freedom-use-mbanje">still prohibit</a> traditional cannabis uses. Even as export markets grow, African citizens <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46288374">face criminal consequences</a> for domestic production. </p>
<p>Cannabis-policy reforms in Africa have mostly benefited investors and consumers in wealthy countries, not Africans, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48519445">textbook example of neocolonialism</a>. Further, profitable industries in Europe and North America <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562576.2016.1138674">rely on seed taken from Africa</a>, where cannabis genetic diversity is high thanks to farmers’ plant-breeding skills. </p>
<p>Cannabis is the centre of industries that generate billions of dollars annually. Increasingly, this income is legal. History shows that African countries have competitive advantages for cannabis farming. Reforms should <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-8778-5_10">enable Africans to enjoy these advantages</a>.</p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Globally, many societies are recognising that criminalising cannabis <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687637.2021.1972936">has produced problems and has not eliminated drug use</a>. Some African countries are <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/can.2021.0110">developing cannabis-policy reforms</a> that include decriminalisation and degrees of legalisation. African (and non-African) societies must address <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ediomo-Ubong-Nelson/publication/355507767_Between_Prohibition_and_Regulation_Narrative_Analysis_of_Cannabis_Policy_Debate_in_Africa/links/61767ccb0be8ec17a92a1ab6/Between-Prohibition-and-Regulation-Narrative-Analysis-of-Cannabis-Policy-Debate-in-Africa.pdf">complex questions in evaluating cannabis policies</a>. </p>
<p>In any case, the plant’s African past provides insight into both long-term and emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis. This is why I study African cannabis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris S. Duvall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The plant’s African past provides insight into emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis.Chris S. Duvall, Professor of Geography, University of New MexicoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980112023-02-05T08:02:19Z2023-02-05T08:02:19ZWeed in South Africa: apartheid waged a war on drugs that still has unequal effects today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505591/original/file-20230120-26-2j6065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's governing ANC has continued the anti-cannabis repression inherited from apartheid.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cannabis is being commercialised into a multibillion-dollar global industry and South Africa wants a piece of the pie. In his <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">2022 state of the nation address</a>, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of developing a hemp and cannabis sector to boost the post-COVID economy.</p>
<p>Poor rural communities in South Africa have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62524501">long cultivated cannabis</a> in illegal conditions of risk. They now face losing out to corporate interests and the wealthy.</p>
<p>How did the stakes become so high – and so unequal?</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">recent historical study</a> helps answer this question. It reveals how an apartheid-era drug law incited a “war on drugs” that was in effect a “war on cannabis”.</p>
<p>In 1971 a law was passed that subjected the cannabis plant and its products to the strictest possible controls. This set in motion a structurally racist policy that continued well into the post-apartheid era. </p>
<h2>Apartheid’s 1971 anti-drug law</h2>
<p>In 1971, South Africa’s apartheid government passed the <a href="https://www.lac.org.na/laws/annoSTAT/Abuse%20of%20Dependence-Producing%20Substances%20and%20Rehabilitation%20Centres%20Act%2041%20of%201971.pdf">Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act</a>. Lawmakers boasted it was the</p>
<blockquote>
<p>toughest anti-drug law in the Western World. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The law’s main target was white “hippy” youth. </p>
<p>The law followed recommendations by a state-sponsored inquiry, the <a href="https://libguides.lib.uct.ac.za/c.php?g=182363&p=1581392">Grobler Commission</a>. The commission focused only on white South Africans’ misuse of synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs such as LSD, Mandrax (methaqualone) and heroin. </p>
<p>Though the commission did not in fact turn up evidence of an extensive drug abuse problem, it nevertheless recommended tough suppression.</p>
<p>To the ruling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a>, the use of drugs by white people appeared to threaten Afrikaner religious culture and the future of a white South Africa. They hyped the drug problem as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a form of terrorism that is more dangerous than the armed terrorism we are familiar with on our country’s borders. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This language of crisis enabled the apartheid lawmakers to borrow from the country’s draconian anti-terrorism laws, such as the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01927.htm">1967 Terrorism Act</a>, used to put down anti-apartheid activism.</p>
<p>Like the anti-terrorism legislation, the 1971 anti-drug act provided for harsh minimum prison sentences and detention without trial for purposes of interrogation. It also removed the court’s discretion in sentencing for drug offences.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">Cannabis policy changes in Africa are welcome. But small producers are the losers</a>
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<p>When it was debated in parliament, the principle of “toughness” appealed across party lines – except for the lone voice of the Progressive Party MP <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/helen-suzman">Helen Suzman</a>. Suzman observed that although the Grobler Commission excluded research on substance use by the majority black South Africans, the law would nonetheless apply to them. </p>
<p>Similarly, she argued, the commission had not investigated cannabis – a substance considered by many to be less socially harmful than legal alcohol or tobacco. Yet it was to be scheduled in the new law as a “prohibited dangerous drug”, along with heroin and cocaine. </p>
<h2>Lone voice of reason</h2>
<p>For <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana">centuries in Africa</a>, including parts of South Africa, the cannabis plant had important indigenous cultural value and was cultivated for a variety of social and pharmacological uses. </p>
<p>Cannabis was first <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2022.2128274">criminalised in the country in 1922</a>. But drug <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-teaches-us-about-shaping-south-africas-new-cannabis-laws-150889">policing remained relatively weak</a> for three decades. In the gap, and with growing urban markets, commercial cannabis livelihoods emerged to combat <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566750#metadata_info_tab_contents">growing rural poverty</a>. </p>
<p>In such conditions – as Suzman pointed out – punitive drug control, created to combat white pill-popping, was clearly going to fall on black South Africans for cannabis offences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">Suzman fought hard</a>. She pointed out that a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafer_Commission">“Marijuana Commission”</a> was under way in the US, documenting how the supposed dangers of cannabis were greatly exaggerated. She argued for a less criminalising status for cannabis in South Africa.</p>
<p>Her views were defeated and apartheid’s extraordinary drug legislation was easily passed. Cannabis was classified among those substances marked for strictest suppression.</p>
<h2>The law’s impacts</h2>
<p>This decision proved to be a watershed. The <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">effects of the 1971 anti-drug law</a> were immediately evident, falling disproportionately on black South Africans. Cannabis accounted for well over 95% of drug-related arrests and convictions across all “race” groups. </p>
<p>In a 1972 assessment by the Natal Provincial Supreme Court – in the case <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">State v Shangase and Others</a> - judges showed how prison terms of two to ten years were being imposed even for the petty possession of single cannabis “<em>zol</em>” (joint).</p>
<p>The “rehabilitation centres” part of the 1971 law applied only to white offenders since – <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">as Suzman had pointed out</a> – the segregationist state did not provide drug treatment programmes for black people. But, even for convicted white users, sentences involving treatment applied in less than 1% of cases.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, but unsurprisingly, illegal cannabis cultivation increased within the segregated spaces of apartheid.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-approach-to-criminalisation-could-end-cape-towns-drug-wars-121769">A new approach to criminalisation could end Cape Town's drug wars</a>
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<p>An illegal crop in high demand was profitable to grow, and even more so to trade. Helicopters spraying herbicides and multiple checkpoints raised the stakes of drug politics for all parties.</p>
<p>The laws’s embedded racism meant that as tough drug suppression continued after apartheid ended, its racist effects also continued.</p>
<h2>A reckoning with history is needed</h2>
<p>The 1971 anti-drug law was replaced in 1992 with a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/drugs-and-drug-trafficking-act">Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act</a>. The new law maintained harsh sentences and cannabis remained illegal. The African National Congress, which came into power in 1994, reproduced the heavy-handed tactics it had inherited from the apartheid National Party: militarised suppression, spraying and incarcerations.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-court-frees-cannabis-from-colonial-and-apartheid-past-103644">2017 and 2018</a>, the government’s cannabis policy was successfully challenged in the courts, on grounds of cultural and religious freedom. This also opened a window for liberalising cannabis as a commercial venture for certain products. Yet <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">the actual policy remains unclear and contested</a>.</p>
<p>Apartheid’s 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa’s unequal cannabis landscape. Now, in an opening cannabis economy, rural cultivators remain in a vulnerable position against more powerful interests. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-use-in-south-africa-what-next-after-landmark-court-ruling-103607">Marijuana use in South Africa: what next after landmark court ruling?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/721752">Decolonising drug-related knowledge and policies</a> in South Africa requires a deeper reckoning with history, including from apartheid into the present.</p>
<p>*Quotations from the <em>Debates of the House of Assembly</em>, Hansard (Cape Town: Government of the Republic of South Africa, 5 May 1971.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thembisa Waetjen receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>A 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa’s unique cannabis landscape.Thembisa Waetjen, Associate Professor of History, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1970142022-12-22T06:29:34Z2022-12-22T06:29:34ZThe peculiar history of thornapple, the hallucinogenic weed that ended up in supermarket spinach<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502496/original/file-20221222-17-jd44zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1000%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/white-flower-poisonous-vespertineflowering-thornapple-plant-2199701639">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The agent that contaminated baby spinach, prompting the recent <a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/Baby-spinach-recall.aspx">national recall</a>, has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/21/weed-responsible-for-hallucinogenic-spinach-recall-identified-as-applethorn">revealed</a>. It’s a weed, not deliberate misadventure or a chemical contaminant. </p>
<p>The culprit is <a href="https://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/Commonthornapple">thornapple</a>, otherwise known as jimsonweed or, to give it its scientific name, <em>Datura stramonium</em>.</p>
<p>Multiple cases of poisoning, now extending <a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/Baby-spinach-recall.aspx">into their hundreds</a>, have been reported across numerous Australian jurisdictions in the past couple of weeks, following the consumption of baby spinach.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1605509424260517889"}"></div></p>
<h2>From blurred vision to hallucinations</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/Baby-spinach-recall.aspx">Symptoms included</a> blurred vision, dry mouth, abdominal cramps – and quite significant hallucinations. These are all classic symptoms of “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534798/">anticholinergic poisoning</a>”. </p>
<p>“Toxidromes” are patterns of symptoms that give medical responders clues to what agent might be responsible for a poisoning. Not all types of poisoning come with their own toxidrome, but of those that do, anticholinergic poisoning is one of the most colourful and well-characterised.</p>
<p>There would be very few medical students who would not be familiar with some version of the <a href="https://www.rch.org.au/clinicalguide/guideline_index/Anticholinergic_Syndrome/">mnemonic</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>red as a beet, dry as a bone, blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, hot as a hare, full as a flask. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This reflects the characteristic flushing, drying up of sweating and saliva, dilation of pupils, “altered mental state”, fever and, in some occasions, urinary retention. Additional features can include stomach cramps. An “altered mental state” can manifest as delirium, hallucinations, agitation, restlessness or confusion, together with possible changes in speech and gait, among other effects.</p>
<p>All of these effects are due to toxins that block the action of an essential neurotransmitter (chemical messenger in the nervous system), <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11143/">acetylcholine</a> and its receptor.</p>
<p>These are vital cogs in the autonomic nervous system, the maintenance janitor of our nervous system. Fundamental as it is to our survival, it is hardly a surprise that any disturbance of its function results in fairly dramatic effects.</p>
<p>It is also similarly not that surprising that humans have known about plant materials that exert these effects for as long as humans have been interested in using plants for either therapeutic or nefarious purposes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-have-always-wondered-why-are-some-fruits-poisonous-83210">I have always wondered: why are some fruits poisonous?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A rich history of using these plants</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman with a mirror" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502518/original/file-20221222-26-76w7a3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titian’s Woman with a Mirror is thought to depict use of deadly nightshade to dilate the pupils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiziano,_donna_allo_specchio,_1515_ca._01.JPG">Sailko/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6412926/">Tropane alkaloids</a> are both valuable, and potentially dangerous, compounds with a rich history.</p>
<p>Ancient Egyptians reportedly burned <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844275/">henbane</a> and inhaled its smoke as one of the earliest treatments for asthma.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/deadly-nightshade-botanical-biography">Deadly nightshade</a> was used in Renaissance Italy as both a poison and as a cosmetic agent, with drops of extract used to dilate the pupils of wealthy ladies. Titian’s <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/ethnobotany/Mind_and_Spirit/belladonna.shtml">Woman with a Mirror</a> is thought to depict this. </p>
<h2>Then there were the naked soldiers</h2>
<p>Thornapple has its own peculiar story, which is impossible to confirm but may give us clues to the origin of its other name, jimsonweed.</p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://wydaily.com/news/local/2021/10/22/oddities-curiosities-the-colonial-case-of-the-mysterious-jimson-weed/">widely reported story</a> from colonial times in Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were sent to quell an uprising in Bacon in the 1600s. </p>
<p>The soldiers prepared a meal from the plant and shortly afterwards, were entirely incapacitated. They were, <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/beverley/beverley.html">apparently</a> “stark naked … sitting up in a corner, like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them”. Another of the affected soldiers would “fondly kiss, and paw his companions”. </p>
<p>This was regarded as a something of a worry in an armed expeditionary force. So the plant earned the additional names “devil’s snare” or “devil’s trumpet”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/little-shop-of-horrors-the-australian-plants-that-can-kill-you-50842">Little shop of horrors: the Australian plants that can kill you</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Back in Australia</h2>
<p>Plants from the <em>Datura</em> genus and the closely related, woody cousin, angel’s trumpet, are widely grown for their decorative flowers around Australia. Occasionally some people deliberately consume them for their hallucinogenic effects, with misadventure requiring medical intervention not uncommon.</p>
<p>Every year, poisons centres and emergency departments around the country are involved in managing these recreational overdoses. </p>
<p>Accidental overdoses, such as the one affecting the baby spinach crop, are less common but not unheard of. One such outbreak was reported <a href="https://www.napolike.com/pozzuoli-pianta-velenosa-venduta-come-spinaci-8-intossicati-uno-e-grave">in Italy</a> earlier this year. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, thornapple is a hardy plant, with seeds that can reputedly last several decades. Without constant agricultural vigilance, contamination of plants meant for human consumption remains a possibility.</p>
<p>For those not anticipating the effects, poisoning can be quite disturbing, not just from the obvious physical effects, but from the disconcerting hallucinations. Fortunately, the treatment of such exposures, once identified, is usually relatively straightforward. </p>
<p>Given the characteristic toxidrome, and the efficiency of modern poisons information centres, outbreaks and sources can be identified very rapidly, and the public protected from further exposure, as has been the case here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Caldicott has previously been the recipient of an NH&MRC partnership grant.</span></em></p>Thornapple or jimsonweed and related plants have an interesting history – from an early asthma treatment to intoxicated British soldiers.David Caldicott, Senior lecturer, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1666452021-09-07T16:13:26Z2021-09-07T16:13:26ZCanada’s marijuana legalization provides lessons to the world on selling cannabis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419128/original/file-20210902-19-1o5pjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2392&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman marks the first day of legalization of cannabis across Canada as she lights a joint in a Toronto park in October 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October 2018, Canada <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-campaign-promise-kept-canadas-modestly-successful-cannabis-legalization-122380">became the first G20 country to legalize the recreational use of cannabis</a>. Over the past three years, the province of Ontario — to name just one Canadian jurisdiction — has moved away from having a significantly under-serviced retail market to one that is heavily saturated.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2018/06/bill-c-45-the-cannabis-act-passed-in-senate.html">The Cannabis Act (Bill C-45)</a> provided the rules and regulations around the production, distribution, sale and possession of cannabis. However, there are significant differences in each province’s and territory’s retail framework — private, public or hybrid — and the legal age for consumption, purchasing options and personal possession limits.</p>
<p>Was the rollout a success or failure? When analyzing the evolution of an illegal-to-legal retail market, our recent study found considerable consumer discontent with at least one province’s cannabis retailing approach. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102580">Our research</a> examines how consumers have reacted to cannabis retail in the province of Ontario.</p>
<h2>Ontario market</h2>
<p>The two-year period following the passing of Bill C-45 was largely defined by policy rollouts that impacted both cannabis users and emerging cannabis businesses. In 2017, Ontario’s Liberal government decided on a fully public model whereby the government-run Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) would operate <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/17c26">150 brick-and-mortar retail cannabis stores</a>.</p>
<p>After the provincial election in 2018 that saw the Conservatives come to power after 15 years of Liberal rule, these policy developments were scrapped in favour of a dual retail model: public (online only) and pseudo-private sector (offline only). </p>
<p>By the first day of cannabis legalization on Oct. 17, 2018, <a href="https://ocs.ca/blogs/news/update-from-the-ocs-on-the-launch-of-online-sales">the only legal method to purchase cannabis was through the online Ontario Cannabis Store</a>.</p>
<p>Then, in December 2018, the Conservative government announced that a pseudo private-sector cannabis retail model would be implemented through a lottery system to provide licences for brick-and-mortar retail stores, capping the total number of licences at just <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/18c12">25 locations</a> across the province. </p>
<p>Although the federal and provincial government introduced legislation to permit the legal operation of privately owned cannabis stores, municipalities in Ontario <a href="https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/list-ontario-municipalities-prohibiting-or-allowing-cannabis-retail-stores">were able to opt out</a> of the legislation and not allow cannabis stores to operate within their community boundaries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Customers shop for cannabis" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2338&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419127/original/file-20210902-23-1vnoau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Customers shop for cannabis in a licensed retail store in Toronto in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The consumer response</h2>
<p>In our study, we analyzed all of the tweets that mentioned the Ontario Cannabis Store on Twitter and found significant consumer discontent during the first year of legalization. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1053920056323670017"}"></div></p>
<p>The rigid government policies and eligibility criteria for obtaining licences required to sell cannabis products created significant issues around ordering, delivery and product availability. </p>
<p>Strict licensing protocols resulted in an under-served market, forcing the Ontario Cannibis Store’s website to function beyond capacity. Higher-than-expected demand, coupled with limited brick-and-mortar stores, created significant issues with online sales and major delays in delivery.</p>
<p>The unprecedented demand for cannabis products created further supply issues. Twitter users demonstrated that the restrictive purchasing options (due to government policy) created a shortage of point-of-sale locations, leaving consumers unable to purchase their desired products. </p>
<p>In addition, the rigorous producer licensing application process in Canada that requires many steps to ensure <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/laws-regulations/regulations-support-cannabis-act.html">health and safety standards</a> created a significant barrier to entry for some potential producers. </p>
<p>As a result of these shortages, Ontario limited the number of retail outlets that were allowed to open. Furthermore, with <a href="https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/list-ontario-municipalities-prohibiting-or-allowing-cannabis-retail-stores">17.6 per cent of all municipalities</a> in Ontario opting against establishing brick-and-mortar stores, many consumers were left with no choice but to purchase products online from the Ontario Cannabis Store or turn to the black market. These and other governance-related issues can be attributed to changes to the provincial policies, which occurred as a result of a shift to a Conservative government. </p>
<h2>Cutting red tape</h2>
<p>In order to combat these supply shortages, the provincial government removed much of the red tape associated with licensing protocols for brick-and-mortar stores. Since then, the cannabis market in Ontario has gone through a significant retail sprawl, growing from the 25 locations in the first year of legalization to more than <a href="https://www.agco.ca/status-current-cannabis-retail-store-applications">1,000 locations</a> to date. </p>
<p>This growth is now creating major concerns with store cannibalization. With many cannabis retailers competing for the same market share, it is <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/too-many-toronto-pot-shops-why-some-owners-are-looking-to-bail-1.5514475">increasingly difficult for some of these retailers to remain profitable</a>. </p>
<p>Since recreational cannabis legalization came into effect, Canadian provinces and territories have introduced a varied regulatory framework to manage the distribution and sale of recreational cannabis across the country. </p>
<p>While Canada is one of the first countries to legalize recreational cannabis at a national level, it will not be the last. <a href="https://www.wecanhealth.ch/en/marijuana-legalization-2020-which-countries-will-legalize-weed-next/">As many as 33 American states and several European countries</a>, including Italy, Portugal and the Czech Republic, are looking to legalize recreational cannabis. That means Canada’s experience serves as a lesson to other countries as this newly emerging retail sector takes flight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As many as 33 American states and several European countries are looking to legalize recreational cannabis. Canada’s experience has lessons for them about how best to sell cannabis.Joseph Aversa, Assistant Professor, Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityJenna Jacobson, Assistant Professor, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityTony Hernandez, Professor, Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564862021-03-08T16:35:38Z2021-03-08T16:35:38ZGrowing cannabis indoors produces a lot of greenhouse gases – just how much depends on where it’s grown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387982/original/file-20210305-13-c99s0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C3000%2C2196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Growing cannabis indoors is an energy-intensive process. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indoor_cannabis_plants.jpg">Plantlady223 via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Indoor cannabis production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the environmental effects vary significantly depending on <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f47100de3f6b46bb9aebf8dc52d957bf&extent=-18880993.9285%2C2754896.1724%2C-8069740.6478%2C10092850.8878%2C102100">where it is being grown</a>, according to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00691-w">our new study</a>.</p>
<p>The lights used to <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2018/02/19/nearly-4-percent-of-denvers-electricity-is-now-devoted-to-marijuana/">grow weed indoors use a lot of electricity</a>, but facilities require a lot of energy to maintain a comfortable environment for the plants. That means air conditioners or heaters to maintain proper temperatures. Producers also pump carbon dioxide inside to increase plant growth. This accounts for <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00691-w">11% to 25% of facilities’ greenhouse gas emissions</a>. </p>
<p>But the biggest energy use comes from the need to constantly bring fresh air into growing facilities. All of this outside air needs to be treated so that it is the correct temperature and humidity. This is a very energy-intensive process since the air exchange rate is typically so high.</p>
<p>All of these inputs contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, a lot more in some regions than others.</p>
<p>Using Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and industry data, we found that growing pot indoors leads to higher greenhouse gas emissions in the <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f47100de3f6b46bb9aebf8dc52d957bf&extent=-18880993.9285%2C2754896.1724%2C-8069740.6478%2C10092850.8878%2C102100">Mountain West, Midwest, Alaska and Hawaii</a> than compared to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. This is because climates are milder on the coasts, so you need less heating or air conditioning and because <a href="https://www.epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer">the electric grids use more clean energy</a></p>
<p>Cannabis grown in Southern California has the lowest emissions, at 143 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per ounce of dried cannabis. Meanwhile, eastern O'ahu in Hawaii has the highest emissions, at <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00691-w">324 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per ounce</a>. That’s roughly equivalent to <a href="https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-emission-fuels-d_1085.html">burning 16 gallons of gasoline</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the midwest and rocky mountains in dark red while the coasts are pale red or white." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387981/original/file-20210305-21-1al1ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Places with more extreme temperatures and fewer renewable energy sources had the highest greenhouse gas emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Quinn</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Policymakers and consumers aren’t paying much attention to environmental impacts of the cannabis industry. In Colorado, the weed industry accounts for <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1120LdxmecGTuf7uil9l6YmjOQonYOnxV/view">1.3% of the state’s total annual emissions</a>. This is similar to emissions from coal mining and trash collection for the entire state. </p>
<p>Currently, there is <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&context=onej">little to no regulation on emissions for growing cannabis indoors</a>. Consumers aren’t thinking about the environmental effect either. As a whole, this industry is developing and expanding very quickly without consideration for the environment. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>The cannabis industry is so new that researchers don’t even know how much is grown indoors. Additionally, every indoor operation is unique. Some are old warehouses using outdated equipment, while others are much more energy-efficient.</p>
<p>Growing cannabis outdoors or in greenhouses could be one way to remove the need for lights and environmental controls. However, researchers don’t know the greenhouse gas emissions associated with these growth methods either. All these unknowns make it hard to develop polices or best management practices.</p>
<p><iframe id="ZcIed" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZcIed/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Our team’s goal is to better quantify and communicate the environmental impact of cannabis production so that those who want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be better informed.</p>
<p>We aim to show greenhouse gas emissions per serving of tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical that produces the “high.” Our preliminary results show that one serving of THC – roughly 10 mg of dried flower – is likely to have higher greenhouse gas emissions than a serving of <a href="https://www.ess.uci.edu/%7Esjdavis/pubs/Fat_Tire_2008.pdf">beer</a>, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2945">wine</a>, <a href="https://curis.ku.dk/portal/files/44663043/FOI_report_207.pdf">spirits</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.04.011">coffee</a> or <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.8b01533">cigarettes</a>, regardless of the location the weed was grown. </p>
<p>Our team is also interested in understanding where weed could be grown if federal legalization happens. Legalization might allow policymakers and producers to grow weed in places and in ways that are much more environmentally friendly, but they need the knowledge to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Growing weed indoors is not an environmentally friendly process. Climate controls create a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, and where the pot is produced has a huge influence on emission levels.Jason Quinn, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Sustainability Research Laboratory, Colorado State UniversityHailey Summers, Ph.D. Student in Mechanical Engineering and Sustainability, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538412021-01-28T20:07:35Z2021-01-28T20:07:35ZWeed withdrawal: More than half of people using medical cannabis for pain experience withdrawal symptoms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380735/original/file-20210126-21-1fdxais.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C0%2C5083%2C3065&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The use of cannabis, though safer than many other drugs, is not entirely without risk. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MarijuanaSmallTowns/8e11f4e5d6524549aa9a41f43fb79e87/photo?Query=marijuana%20AND%20jars&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=122&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380977/original/file-20210127-23-1y9tl5r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>In stark contrast to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness">overblown fears</a> portrayed during decades past, these days, most people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.07.008">think cannabis is relatively harmless</a>. While weed is indeed less dangerous than some other drugs, it is not without risks. </p>
<p>In a study published Jan. 5, my colleagues and I found that 59% percent of people using medical cannabis for chronic pain experienced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15370">moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms</a> if they stopped ingesting weed for hours or days.</p>
<p>Most states in the U.S. have legalized cannabis for medical purposes and 15 have legalized it for recreational use. More people are using cannabis, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.7517">especially older adults</a>, and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.07.008">perceived harms from weed use are steadily decreasing</a>. While many people report therapeutic benefits or enjoy recreational use of cannabis, it is important people understand the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/adb0000452">potential risks of cannabis use</a> too.</p>
<h2>What cannabis withdrawal looks like</h2>
<p>Cannabis withdrawal symptoms can include both physical and psychological experiences that emerge when someone <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/01.yco.0000218592.00689.e5">comes down from being high or goes for a period of time without use</a>. </p>
<p>When people use cannabis regularly – such as daily or nearly daily – parts of the brain become reliant on cannabinoids, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.13710">psychoactive chemicals in cannabis</a>. Cannabinoids are naturally produced in the body, but at a much lower level than is available in most cannabis products. Among those who don’t use weed for a period of several hours or days, cannabinoid levels drop and they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-017-0143-1">experience withdrawal symptoms</a>. These can including irritability, depressed mood, decreased appetite, sleep difficulties, a desire or craving to use cannabis, restlessness, anxiety, increased aggression, headaches, shakiness, nausea, increased anger, strange dreams, stomach pain and sweating. </p>
<p>Cannabis withdrawal symptoms usually go away within one to two weeks after use is stopped as the body <a href="https://doi-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/10.1037/0021-843X.112.3.393">adjusts back to its own natural production of cannabinoids</a>. Unlike withdrawal from some psychoactive substances – such as alcohol – cannabis withdrawal is not life threatening or medically dangerous. But it does exist. Cannabis withdrawal can also be quite unpleasant and people can end up continuing their cannabis use – even when they want to cut back – just to avoid experiencing withdrawal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man inhales marijuana smoke from a glass bong in a room with other people around." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380740/original/file-20210126-23-giekg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Regular use of cannabis can result in dependency and withdrawal when a person stops using cannabis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/EndOfSmoking/0de2dc43b88b4467b075f5e42f86bbac/photo?Query=smoking%20AND%20marijuana&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=334&currentItemNo=10">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span>
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<h2>How common are withdrawal symptoms?</h2>
<p>To figure out how common withdrawal symptoms are, over two years, my colleagues and I repeatedly surveyed 527 people who were using medical weed for chronic pain. We found that 59% of people who use medical cannabis for chronic pain <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15370">had moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms</a>. The most common symptoms were sleep difficulties, irritability and anxiety.</p>
<p>We also found that cannabis withdrawal symptoms were more severe in younger people, people with mental health problems, people who had a longer history of cannabis use and people who used more frequently or in larger amounts. Additionally, we found that smoking cannabis – rather than eating or topically applying it – was correlated with worse withdrawal symptoms. </p>
<p>Our team also looked at how people’s withdrawal symptoms changed over time. Most continued to experience the same severity of withdrawal symptoms any time they stopped ingesting cannabis over the two years of the study, but about 10% – particularly younger people – got worse over time. As with most dependency-forming substances, reducing the frequency or amount of cannabis use may help to alleviate these symptoms. </p>
<p>Our study looked at people who use medical cannabis only for pain. But in another recent meta-analysis that included both recreational and medical use, researchers found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.2370">47% of frequent cannabis users experience withdrawals</a>. </p>
<p>Cannabis may not be the demon drug from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028346/">“Reefer Madness,”</a> but neither is it a wonder–plant with limitless upsides and no downsides. As cannabis use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00952990.2019.1569668">increases across the U.S.</a>, it’s important for people to understand that regular use can lead to withdrawals, and to know what those symptoms are.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lara Coughlin receives funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. </span></em></p>Weed, though far less dangerous than many other drugs, is not entirely without risk. Some 59% of people treating pain with medical cannabis experience moderate to severe withdrawal symptomsLara Coughlin, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1509632020-12-07T14:53:43Z2020-12-07T14:53:43ZWhy some young Nigerians are using cannabis as a normal part of life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373331/original/file-20201207-19-1h3eq26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A vendor cuts cannabis popularly known as marijuana for sale in Nigeria. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cannabis is illegal in Nigeria. Its production, distribution and use are criminalised by local laws. Cultivated mostly in southern Nigeria, the drug is affordable and readily available through street drug-running. Cannabis users are also widely seen as social deviants, and are liable to arrest and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395918300124">imprisonment</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the stigma and danger from the law, the use of cannabis in Nigeria is <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Drugs/Drug_Use_Survey_Nigeria_2019_BOOK.pdf">growing</a> fast. <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Drugs/Drug_Use_Survey_Nigeria_2019_BOOK.pdf">Studies</a> show that it ranks just below alcohol as the second most used psychoactive substance in Nigeria. It is mostly used by people aged 25-39 years.</p>
<p>In my recent research leading to two <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022042620912805">publications</a>, I explored access to recreational <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687637.2020.1834514">drugs</a>, and the factors that encourage and motivate young adults in an eastern Nigerian city to use cannabis. My study also examined cannabis normalisation among users and their social networks. I recorded how the participants connect cannabis to their academic, leisure, social and sporting lives. </p>
<p>It’s important to understand why young people are using drugs, and if policy and legal frameworks are to be effective in reducing any harm. My findings show that cannabis is readily available in the city where I conducted our interviews, and it is easily accessible. </p>
<h2>Cannabis has many uses</h2>
<p>For my study, I selected 23 young men and women who were either university undergraduates or graduates who use cannabis. I interviewed them to find out their habits and why they use the drug.</p>
<p>Although participants acknowledged that the drug is illegal, access was easy. This was because more people are growing cannabis at home. The networks of users are rapidly expanding and there is a proliferation of street dealers who are aided by corrupt police officers. </p>
<p>My participants said young people offer cannabis to their guests as an act of hospitality. Cannabis is used in social settings such as parties and bars, where it cements relationships and sparks new friendships. In social settings, smoking cannabis also built trust among users. Rejecting an offer of cannabis was seen as a negative act, especially among young men.</p>
<p>Participants also used cannabis with the aim of enhancing academic performance. This motivation reflects social features of Nigerian society, such as high rates of youth <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/812300/youth-unemployment-rate-in-nigeria/#:%7E:text=Youth%20unemployment%20rate%20in%20Nigeria%20in%202020&text=In%202020%2C%20the%20estimated%20youth,policies%20to%20set%20labor%20standards.">unemployment</a> and the championing of masculine <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-1499-6">ego</a>. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s high achievement culture and the pressure to satisfy parents and potential employers motivated undergrads to use cannabis to boost their confidence and performance in examinations. Some of the participants admitted to smoking large quantities of cannabis as a confidence and performance booster. One said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like the day I defended (my project), ‘I cush die’ (I was very high), and my eyes were ‘bitter red’… I went into the hall, and they were asking me questions, and I was answering them. When they ask me the one that I don’t know, I will ask them back. When everybody was trying to get annoyed because I was asking them questions, I cracked a joke. It is confidence that will make you diverse.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another user said cannabis enhanced their performance in written examinations by aiding alertness and memory retention:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I finish reading for an exam and then smoke before entering the hall, I write like never before. I mean, I will fill the script, especially theoretical courses (modules) but not mathematical courses. That day I took weed to write a course called ‘Report Writing’; I was asked to explain two methods of writing references. I just kept on writing because the more I wrote, the more I was getting ideas. I think it’s only good for exams when you’ve actually studied.</p>
</blockquote>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-teaches-us-about-shaping-south-africas-new-cannabis-laws-150889">What history teaches us about shaping South Africa's new cannabis laws</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>What should be done</h2>
<p>Current drug policies and other legal frameworks in Nigeria criminalise cannabis use. But this hinders harm reduction, as cannabis users who may want to quit or seek treatment say they are afraid of arrest and imprisonment.</p>
<p>Nigerian parents and employers need to reconsider the cultural practice of placing supreme emphasis on academic grades. Students who lack adequate parental and academic help are pressured into using cannabis to thrive in Nigeria’s high achievement culture.</p>
<p>There also is an urgent need to give young Nigerians evidence-based <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/CND_Preparations/Intersessional_September_2015/Environmental_strategies_and_STANDARDS.pdf">information</a> on addiction and other drug-related harm. This will curtail drug experimentation and the growing culture of intoxication. Young people should be encouraged to channel their energy into less harmful pursuits, such as sports.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emeka Dumbili received funding from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Nigeria.in 2012-2015. </span></em></p>Beyond recreational consumption, young Nigerians are using cannabis to aid their schooling and work.Emeka Dumbili, Lecturer, Nnamdi Azikiwe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1312702020-04-10T12:14:11Z2020-04-10T12:14:11ZThe unintended consequences of marijuana decriminalization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315541/original/file-20200214-11005-178rr6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marijuana decriminalization won't end arrests.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/marijuana-decriminalization?license=rf&agreements=pa:77130&family=creative&phrase=marijuana%20decriminalization&sort=best#license">Gleti/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>America’s decades-long war on drugs disproportionately harmed minorities. Now, it seems that decriminalization of marijuana hasn’t leveled the playing field.</p>
<p>Black men are <a href="https://www.ibtimes.com/white-men-vs-black-men-prison-statistics-2016-why-are-more-african-american-males-2426793">12 times more likely than white men</a> to spend time incarcerated in the United States. College enrollment for black men <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/05/war-drugs-made-it-harder-black-men-attend-college/588724/">has declined</a> since <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/5484">the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act</a> went into effect.</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nikolay_Anguelov">a scholar of public policy</a>. In my book, “<a href="https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B07NTXQ9JF&tag=bing08-20&linkCode=kpp&reshareId=1Q40ND0MZ3J04P3Y29BJ&reshareChannel=system">From Criminalizing to Decriminalizing Marijuana: The Politics of Social Control</a>,” I aim to provide a historic overview of marijuana legislation and its impact on minorities.</p>
<h2>Unequal easing</h2>
<p>Some drug laws related to marijuana are easing. As of this writing in early 2020, twenty-five states have introduced decriminalization reforms, with <a href="https://norml.org/aboutmarijuana/item/states-that-have-decriminalized">11 states allowing adult recreational use</a>. Such reforms directly impact adults 21 years of age and older, but they also have indirect effect on younger Americans. </p>
<p>Even though marijuana is still illegal for people under 21, evidence is emerging that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2019.106212">decriminalization is increasing the number of kids</a> who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00952990.2019.1599381">consume weed illegally</a>.</p>
<p>As I wrote in my book, young people have always been the main buyers of marijuana. Smoking marijuana has become an important part of growing up for many U.S. teenagers, a fact not acknowledged by any marijuana reform advocacy analysis.</p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/persons-arrested/main">crime data show</a> that even in the most permissive legal environments, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf">minority youth continue to be disproportionately arrested</a> and convicted on marijuana charges.</p>
<h2>Youth using marijuana</h2>
<p>From 2000 to 2014, self-reported <a href="https://www.datafiles.samhsa.gov/study/national-survey-drug-use-and-health-nsduh-2014-nid13618">usage rates in Americans 15 years of age and older doubled</a>. These rates include teens and those under 21, for whom marijuana use continues to be and most likely will continue to be illegal. </p>
<p>Those who advocate for marijuana reform ignore the fact that looser laws promote more marijuana use, especially by young and marginalized Americans who buy the drug in illegal markets.</p>
<p>For example, arrest <a href="https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6470551/Colorado_arrest_report.0.pdf">data show that in Colorado</a>, legalizing recreational use for anyone 21 and over caused a significant increase in the arrest rates of African Americans and Hispanics under that legal age limit. At the same time, arrests for underage whites decreased.</p>
<p>In Washington state, arrests on all marijuana charges fell by 90% between 2008 and 2014, but “hazard rates” for African Americans remained unchanged. This means they were still twice as likely as whites to be arrested on marijuana charges.</p>
<p>In other words, decriminalization has done little to change historical patterns in <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/cius-2016/topic-pages/persons-arrested?55">national marijuana arrest trends</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315539/original/file-20200214-11044-7d5o4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adults age 21 and over can buy marijuana for recreational use as of December in Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Marijuana-Michigan-Illinois/2616f524cbb94065b86a0d976ca968d3/18/0">AP Photo/David Eggert</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What drives reform?</h2>
<p>Liberal Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/">tend to believe marijuana legalization</a> drives reform.</p>
<p>There are three distinctly different categories of marijuana policy reform – decriminalization of possessing a small amount of marijuana, legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing recreational use.</p>
<p>The reform diffusion trend picked impetus in 2000, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/15/us/hawaii-becomes-first-state-to-approve-medical-marijuana-bill.html">when Hawaii</a> and <a href="https://norml.org/news/2001/06/07/nevada-defelonizes-pot-possessionstate-eliminates-jail-criminal-record-for-minor-offenders-legalizes-medical-marijuana-for-seriously-ill">Nevada</a> legalized medical marijuana through their state legislatures.</p>
<p>This signaled the beginning of the political normalization of marijuana reform. Previously, medical marijuana laws were reformed largely by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080503160619/http://norml.com/index.cfm?Group_ID=3391">ballot initiatives</a> in states with constitutions that have a direct democracy measure.</p>
<p>In my book, I analyzed the political, economic and demographic predictors of each type of policy reform from 2000 to 2014. The results indicate that rising marijuana usage rates, a ballot initiative allowing voters a say in the matter and the experience of neighboring states are <a href="https://www.datafiles.samhsa.gov/info/browse-studies-nid3454">the main factors driving decriminalization in general</a>.</p>
<p>In all three cases of reform, usage rates were the strongest predictive factor. They had remained largely unchanged until the wave of decriminalization started two decades ago. As state laws reformed, usage rates started to marginally, yet steadily increase. Since 2000 they have doubled nationally.</p>
<p>The strongest spikes are in states that are known as leaders in not just decriminalization, but which are relatively more permissive in terms of possession, access and oversight <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2016/03/10-most-marijuana-enthused-states/">like Washington and Vermont</a>.</p>
<p>States with a relatively large African American population, such as Mississippi, North Carolina and New York, <a href="https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B07NTXQ9JF&tag=bing08-20&linkCode=kpp&reshareId=1Q40ND0MZ3J04P3Y29BJ&reshareChannel=system">were more likely to decriminalize small amount possession first</a>, possibly in an attempt to tackle social injustice.</p>
<p>States such as <a href="https://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com/maryland-marijuana-laws/">Maryland</a>, <a href="https://www.marijuanabreak.com/how-to-get-medical-marijuana-in-virginia">Virginia</a> and <a href="https://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com/rhode-island-marijuana-laws/">Rhode Island</a> have legalized medical use without previously decriminalizing small amount possession.</p>
<p>Decriminalizing recreational use occurred <a href="https://nsduhweb.rti.org/respweb/homepage.cfm">mainly as a function of high marijuana usage rates</a> in states like Massachusetts, Oregon and Colorado.</p>
<h2>The consequences</h2>
<p>Reports regarding the arrest rates for youths may indicate unintended consequences of decriminalization.</p>
<p>These consequences include increased police discretion, providing incentives for youth consumption in illegal markets and exacerbating racial problems in juvenile justice.</p>
<p>If reform advocates want to address the historical wrongs of the war on drugs, they have to figure out how to tackle the cultural promotion of marijuana use which goes hand in hand with the political promotion of decriminalization. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikolay Anguelov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Decriminalizing medical and recreational marijuana may exacerbate racial inequality within the criminal justice system, among other things.Nikolay Anguelov, Associate Professor of Public Policy, UMass DartmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323342020-02-26T17:35:18Z2020-02-26T17:35:18ZWhy is cannabis so expensive in some provinces? Don’t ask Statistics Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317124/original/file-20200225-24672-1e9fzyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Weed prices, including for cannabis oil, vary wildly across Canada following legalization. Why? Government statistics don't provide any reliable insight.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To evaluate cannabis legalization’s progress and success, Canadians need good information about legal product sales. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, most provincial cannabis agencies keep results overly secret. And some publicly available estimates lack precision.</p>
<p>One example of cannabis agency secrecy made the news last week. An investigation found <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cannabis-extract-oil-capsule-spray-ocs-1.5459516">cannabis oil prices vary “wildly” between provinces</a>. </p>
<p>Inter-provincial price differences exceeded 50 per cent for half the products surveyed. The report couldn’t explain the “fishy” differences.</p>
<h2>Newfoundland and Ontario price higher</h2>
<p>But it’s no secret that legal pot costs more in, say, Ontario than Québec. Ontario’s cannabis agency marks-up prices by triple what Québec’s <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-cannabis-stores-report-1-4-million-in-net-income-during-second-quarter">more profitable</a> agency does.</p>
<p>We can see this by analyzing their 2018-19 financial statements. <a href="https://www.sqdc.ca/fr-CA/a-propos/acces-a-l-information/Publications">Québec’s</a> retail revenues averaged 23 per cent above what it paid producers. By contrast, <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/financial-statements-government-organizations-and-business-enterprises-2018-19">Ontario’s</a> markups averaged around 77 per cent.</p>
<p>The corresponding figures were 38 per cent in <a href="https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/information/finance/public-accounts">Prince Edward Island</a>, 55 per cent in <a href="https://www.cannabis-nb.com/about-cannabis-nb/">New Brunswick</a> and 90 per cent in <a href="https://www.nlliquor.com/corporate/about-nlc/annual-report">Newfoundland</a>. <a href="https://www.mynslc.com/en/About-NSLC/Company/Reports-and-Plans">Nova Scotia</a> and <a href="http://www.bcldb.com/publications/annual-report">British Columbia</a> didn’t disclose enough detail to estimate markups. The Prairie provinces don’t have government-owned shops.</p>
<p>To see the markups’ impact, consider a hypothetical cannabis oil product the producer sells to agencies for $20 plus tax. In Québec, the product might have retailed at $30.41. That includes $4.95 for agency markup, $3.76 for provincial taxes and $1.70 for federal taxes.</p>
<p>In Newfoundland and Labrador, the same product could retail for 54 per cent more, at $46.98. That gives $19.35 to the agency, $5.21 to the province and $2.42 to the feds.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316991/original/file-20200225-24676-1ywyke.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Revenue breakdowns for hypothetical oil products, assuming average markups and 150 mg of tetrahydrocannabinol. Estimated by author from government reports.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Michael Armstrong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Undisclosed provincial priorities</h2>
<p>Price differences aren’t inherently wrong. They just indicate different priorities. Higher markups provide more revenue for governments. Lower markups make legal products more competitive with illegal ones.</p>
<p>What’s wrong is that governments aren’t publicizing this key policy decision. Do Newfoundland and Ontario voters know their governments put more emphasis on making money than on taking business away from <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ford-hamilton-marijuana-1.5079838">black-market vendors</a>? </p>
<p>Are Nova Scotia and British Columbia residents curious about their politicians’ undisclosed priorities?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is just one example of provincial pot paternalism.</p>
<p>Consider a simple question: How much cannabis does your province sell?</p>
<p>Québec answers that question best. Its cannabis agency’s quarterly and annual reports are very detailed. New Brunswick is similarly open about its results.</p>
<p>Other provinces are less transparent. They issue brief quarterly announcements or terse year-end summaries. Supposedly “open for business” Ontario hasn’t provided a full quarterly or annual report <a href="https://www.doingbusinesswithocs.ca/corporate-governance/">since March 2018</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ontario-isnt-really-open-for-business-105817">How Ontario isn't really 'open for business'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Not knowing provinces’ real numbers, we have to use federal approximations.</p>
<p>For example, Statistics Canada <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv!recreate.action?pid=2010000801&selectedNodeIds=2D30,3D1&checkedLevels=0D1,0D2&refPeriods=20190801,20191201&dimensionLayouts=layout3,layout2,layout2,layout2&vectorDisplay=false">recently estimated</a> that national cannabis sales hit $146 million in December, up eight per cent from November. It estimated provincial sales too.</p>
<h2>Imprecise federal estimates</h2>
<p>Such estimates are never perfect. But for cannabis, the margins of error can be substantial.</p>
<p>Consider total sales during legalization’s first six months. StatCan’s estimate for Prince Edward Island was bang on, coming within two per cent of the actual total.</p>
<p>But it undershot British Columbia’s sales by 50 per cent: $9.3 million estimated versus about $18.8 million actual.</p>
<p>It also underestimated Québec’s sales by 17 per cent for September to December 2018. And overestimated them by the same amount the next quarter. </p>
<p>The agency has since made changes. It apparently now gets sales data from Health Canada’s cannabis tracking system, rather than just store surveys.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some problems remain. StatCan said it had “excellent” data for <a href="https://www.mynslc.com/en/About-NSLC/Media-Centre/News-Releases/NSLC-Releases-Third-Quarter-Financial-Performance">Nova Scotia’s October to December sales</a>. But its estimate was 25 per cent too low. </p>
<p>StatCan’s estimates are certainly better than nothing. But even on a quarterly basis, they’ve only been accurate to within about plus or minus 35 per cent, 19 times out of 20.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316960/original/file-20200224-24680-15gqpy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage difference of Statistics Canada estimates relative to actual sales for 19 quarterly or semi-annual provincial reports. Calculated by author.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Michael Armstrong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Legal’ sources?</h2>
<p>StatCan also just compared <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200219/dq200219c-eng.htm">cannabis usage before and after legalization</a>. Its <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2020014-eng.pdf?st=ki0Z80bY">graphical summary</a> indicates that before legalization, 23 per cent of consumers reported getting some of their cannabis from legal sources, versus 52 per cent after.</p>
<p>However, StatCan’s <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/82-003-X202000200002">accompanying report</a> notes the actual authorized cannabis user count before recreational legalization was only one-third of its estimate. And <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data.html">Health Canada’s website</a> shows the number who actually bought cannabis legally was only one-seventh of the estimate. That’s a big inaccuracy.</p>
<h2>Measuring progress</h2>
<p>Canada is ahead of countries like the United States and <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12292482">New Zealand</a> on cannabis legalization, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-canada-whats-next-124871">a lot of work remains</a>. Industry must reduce costs and <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-quality-involves-careful-science-and-carefree-highs-118679">improve quality</a>. Governments must learn from <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-what-provinces-get-right-about-cannabis-retailing/">each other’s successes</a>.</p>
<p>But that’s difficult when key numbers are hidden or uncertain. Businesses, governments and voters need good measurements of legalization’s progress to know what changes are needed.</p>
<p>For example, the New Brunswick sales estimate jumped 18 per cent in December. Does that represent clever agency retailing? Improved government policy? Or statistical miscalculation? Currently, we can’t tell.</p>
<p>How can we decide where to go, if we aren’t even sure where we are?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada’s cannabis industry needs to reduce costs and improve quality. That’s difficult to do when key government data is unreliable.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248712019-10-15T22:18:17Z2019-10-15T22:18:17ZLegal cannabis celebrates its first anniversary in Canada: What’s next?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297229/original/file-20191015-98661-nblkun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=423%2C9%2C2416%2C2077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Montrealers hold up a Canadian flag with a marijuana logo on it outside a government cannabis store in the city Oct. 17, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week marks the first anniversary of Canada’s recreational cannabis legalization. It’s an appropriate time to review what happened last year and consider what’s coming next.</p>
<p>Legalization brought big changes for some folks. About <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190822/t001c-eng.htm">9,200 employees</a> now work at cannabis producers, with thousands more at retailers. Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/hexo-s-poor-outlook-could-foreshadow-bad-trip-for-cannabis-industry-1.5318470">company profits remain scarce</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/scarce-retail-weed-shops-means-most-canadians-still-use-black-market-pot-113503">tax revenues are modest</a>.</p>
<p>By contrast, cannabis users are largely unchanged. In the nine months before legalization, an average of <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1310038301#timeframe">14.9 per cent</a> of Canadians reported using cannabis. That increased by only one-tenth, to 16.3 per cent, during the nine months after.</p>
<p>However, those users have increasingly bought their cannabis legally.</p>
<h2>Sales grew</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data/supply-demand.html">Health Canada data</a> show July’s legal recreational and medical sales totalled 11,387 kilograms of dry cannabis and 9,854 litres of cannabis oil. That’s the fifth consecutive month of expanding sales.</p>
<p>Assuming the growth trend continued into August and September, legal products might now constitute 30 per cent of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/legal-cannabis-shortage-looms-1.4845816">Canada’s estimated consumption</a>. Legal home growers likely supply a few percentage points more.</p>
<p>That’s a big improvement from September 2018, when legal sales represented only eight per cent of national demand. But illegal suppliers still control most of the market.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296790/original/file-20191013-96203-1vc9sxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monthly volumes of dry (kilograms) and oil (litres) products, recreational and medical cannabis combined. August and September 2019 values are estimated. Prepared by author from Health Canada data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Armstrong</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Producers and retailers expanded</h2>
<p>The limited sales success was largely due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/feds-are-blowing-smoke-about-pot-supplies-114507">ongoing shortages of dry cannabis products</a> throughout fall and winter. But supplies began improving in spring.</p>
<p>Alongside improving supplies came expanding retail networks. Canada had just over 100 licensed stores in October 2018, but now has more than 550.</p>
<p>Some of those have succeeded wildly. Québec’s government-owned outlets each averaged <a href="https://sqcprdwebsitecontent.azureedge.net/media/31fae01f-b50e-4635-9409-be7d4da0c596/4oK0zA/Olive/Acc%C3%A8s%20info/Publications/Rapport%20financier%20T1.pdf">$940,000 in monthly sales over the summer</a>. Ontario’s private retailers likely did too.</p>
<p>But the high sales per store were largely due to having few stores per province. The store scarcity meant legal cannabis captured merely a fraction of each province’s market.</p>
<p>By contrast, Alberta and New Brunswick have far more retailers per capita, letting legal cannabis seize bigger market shares. But New Brunswick’s outlets averaged <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=2010000801">just $150,000 each</a> in monthly sales, while Alberta’s shops did only slightly better.</p>
<p>So, low store density is good for retailer profitability but not for public policy.</p>
<p>From the latter perspective, Alberta’s retailing approach appears inspired. It had 65 stores open in November, more than any other province. <a href="https://aglc.ca/cannabis/retail-cannabis/cannabis-licensee-search">It now has 301</a>, more than all other provinces combined.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297234/original/file-20191015-98661-pu9uhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Customers leave a Calgary store after purchasing legal cannabis as other wait to get in on Oct. 17, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversely, Ontario’s approach increasingly seems misguided. Its <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/armstrong-ontarios-following-a-pot-luck-path-to-inefficient-cannabis-selling">initial 25-store limit</a> was reasonable, given last December’s shortages of products and information. But its July decision to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/robcannabispro/article-why-better-transparency-at-the-ocs-will-help-beat-the-illegal-market/">license only 50 more shops</a> was far too timid, given how much supplies had improved.</p>
<h2>Policies need review</h2>
<p>In fact, this is a good time for all governments to revisit their cannabis strategies. But any resulting updates should reflect their newfound experience, not their ideological reflexes.</p>
<p>Consider Québec’s good example. It recently announced plans to <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/news/quebec/cannabis-sqdc-to-double-number-of-outlets-by-march/wcm/ed59df32-32b8-4872-8f28-633d4da8feef">double its store count</a> by spring, thereby improving access for its large population.</p>
<p>Ontario should follow that lead. As its <a href="https://occ.ca/mediareleases/ontario-chamber-fire-flower-launch-ontario-cannabis-policy-council/">Chamber of Commerce argued last month</a>, the province needs more retailers and clear processes for adding them.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, New Brunswick is considering <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5919456/new-brunswick-premier-future-cannabis-nb/">privatizing its money-losing cannabis retailer</a>. But it might be better to follow Nova Scotia’s example and put its <a href="https://www.mynslc.com/en/CannabisInfo/Frequently-Asked-Questions">cannabis shops inside liquor stores</a>. That would maintain accessibility while lowering operating costs.</p>
<p>Provinces should also rethink store ownership limits. To ensure competition, Alberta forbids any company from holding more than 15 per cent of all retail licences. That’s about 45 shops, reasonable enough given the province’s size.</p>
<p>By contrast, Ontario limits chains to only <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r18497">75 sites</a>, too few for its large population. And <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/cannabis-business/b-c-cannabis-companies-say-eight-is-not-enough-when-it-comes-to-retail-stores">British Columbia restricts them to eight</a>, dooming retailers to inefficiency.</p>
<p>Provinces should review cannabis pricing too. Québec charges retail prices just <a href="https://sqcprdwebsitecontent.azureedge.net/media/31fae01f-b50e-4635-9409-be7d4da0c596/4oK0zA/Olive/Acc%C3%A8s%20info/Publications/Rapport%20financier%20T1.pdf">28 per cent</a> above what it pays producers. That makes legal products competitive with illicit ones.</p>
<p>By contrast, price mark-ups apparently average <a href="https://www.cannabis-nb.com/globalassets/pdf-attachments/cannabisnb-annualreport-en-2018-2019.pdf">54 per cent in New Brunswick</a>, <a href="https://www.doingbusinesswithocs.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/OCRC-2018-19-AUDITED-FINANCIAL-STATEMENTS-ENG.pdf">74 per cent in Ontario</a> and <a href="https://www.nlliquor.com/corporate/about-nlc/annual-report">90 per cent in Newfoundland</a>. That generates more revenue but gives black markets big advantages.</p>
<p>This pricing issue will grow more important as Canada’s cannabis market evolves in the years ahead.</p>
<h2>Coming competition</h2>
<p>Until recently, the main limits on legal cannabis’ success have been shortages of products and stores. But with those improving, the new challenges will be to <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-vs-black-market-can-it-compete-104915">compete with black markets</a> on price and quality.</p>
<p>That means legal prices must drop, at least for value-priced products. Other provinces should follow Québec’s lead on that.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, producers must continuously improve their <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-quality-involves-careful-science-and-carefree-highs-118679">product quality</a> to offer aromas, potencies and effects comparable to the best illicit weed.</p>
<p>The arrival of cannabis foods, drinks, vapes and lotions in late December should also help. They’re important because <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190815/t007a-eng.htm">about a quarter of cannabis usage</a> involves foods and vapes. Plus, those value-added products provide licensed producers with <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/down-to-business-podcast-why-cannabis-3-0-is-the-real-opportunity-for-canada">excellent opportunities to distinguish themselves</a> from illegal suppliers.</p>
<p>Cannabis beverages will be particularly interesting to watch. Will they partly replace alcohol as a social beverage, as <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tilray-ab-inbev-to-launch-cbd-drinks-in-late-2019-thc-drinks-to-come-later-1.1329821">many producers hope</a>? Or will they remain a niche product?</p>
<p>Of course, illegal suppliers will also be <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/191009/t001a-eng.htm">dropping their prices</a> and improving their products. Consequently, the more legal sales grow, the tougher it will be to grow them further. And that dynamic could make legalization’s first year, despite all its stumbles, look like the easy part. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After cannabis was legalized in Canada last year, we saw increasing supplies, stores and sales. Next comes edibles, vapes and more emphasis on price and quality.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1223802019-09-23T21:56:55Z2019-09-23T21:56:55ZA campaign promise kept: Canada’s modestly successful cannabis legalization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293605/original/file-20190923-54759-g2fjs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6122%2C3849&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Different kinds of cannabis on display are seen at SpritLeaf's store in Kingston, Ont., in March 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The anniversary of Canada’s recreational cannabis legalization arrives Oct. 17, just days before the federal election. Legalization was a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-pot-marijuana-legalization-timeline-1.3252088">Liberal campaign promise</a> from the last election, so it’s timely to review how it’s worked out.</p>
<p>Consumers evidently like legalization. Statistics Canada just reported that July’s recreational sales hit <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=2010000801">$104 million</a>.</p>
<p>Politicians apparently like it too. It’s an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-2019-election-andrew-scheer-1.5252988">election promise the Liberals kept</a> and that <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/cannabis-news/three-of-the-federal-party-leaders-say-theyve-used-cannabis-what-plans-do-all-frontrunners-have-for-pot/wcm/42eb1128-4479-484d-9526-71890a2d86fd">no other party plans to repeal</a>.</p>
<p>But how well has it <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/trudeau-expects-cannabis-supply-shortages-to-be-fixed-within-a-year">reduced black market cannabis, as promised</a>?</p>
<h2>Increasing legal sales</h2>
<p>A government-funded study in 2018 estimated Canada’s total cannabis consumption at roughly <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/legal-cannabis-shortage-looms-1.4845816">926,000 kilograms annually</a>, or some 77,000 kilograms monthly.</p>
<p>Health Canada says that in June 2018, when only medical usage was legal, licensed producers sold <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data.html">2,151 kilograms of dry cannabis and 4,652 litres of cannabis oil</a>. That represents around nine per cent of national demand.</p>
<p>In June 2019, by comparison, legal medical and recreational sales totalled <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data/supply-demand.html">9,976 kilograms of dry and 9,614 litres of oil</a>. That’s about 26 per cent of the market.</p>
<p>So legal sales have roughly tripled. But illegal sales remain the majority.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293450/original/file-20190921-135097-1c1bi12.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Legal medical and recreational cannabis monthly sales volumes, combining dry (kilograms) and oil (litres) products. Prepared by author from Health Canada data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Armstrong</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, StatCan seems more optimistic. Its surveys ask users whether they buy at least some cannabis legally. It estimated that number at 47 per cent, or 2.5 million Canadians, for the first quarter of 2019. That’s up sharply from <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190502/dq190502a-eng.htm">23 per cent, or 954,000 people</a>, in 2018’s first quarter.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, those estimates aren’t really plausible. The only people who could legally buy cannabis in March 2018 were Health Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data.html">296,702 registered patients</a>. And just 132,975 did so. That implies StatCan’s estimates are three to seven times too high.</p>
<p>So while survey participants <em>reported</em> purchasing legally, they mostly didn’t.</p>
<h2>Growing pains</h2>
<p>One reason legal sales haven’t done better is a lack of retailers in some regions. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/legal-cannabis-sales-province-bc-pot-sales-online-1.5260430">British Columbia</a> and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/robcannabispro/article-why-better-transparency-at-the-ocs-will-help-beat-the-illegal-market/">Ontario</a> were especially slow to open stores.</p>
<p>Product shortages have posed bigger problems. While there’s <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/cannabis/just-not-selling-canopys-results-take-hit-as-some-retailers-struggle-to-move-oil-and-gel-products/wcm/74474041-2837-49b3-a5fa-10dc067ffeea">ample oil</a>, producers until recently hadn’t <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-cannabis-sales-and-supply-are-booming-but-complications-remain/">processed enough dry products</a>. And legal foods, drinks, vapes and lotions aren’t yet available.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-legalization-of-weed-edibles-is-another-global-social-experiment-116919">Canada's legalization of weed edibles is another global social experiment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Those shortages are predictable side effects of the government’s legalization strategy. It chose a regulated pharmaceutical approach, rather than the more hands-off approach many U.S. states have used.</p>
<p>That hands-off approach has several drawbacks, however. Ex-black-market producers don’t always prioritize consumer safety. Some reportedly <a href="https://www.leafly.ca/news/industry/lab-shopping-thc-inflation-marijuana-2019-leafly-review">fudge their product lab tests</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, minimal government oversight is worrisome to social conservatives. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-sued-pot-deliveries-20190405-story.html">Almost 80 per cent of California cities</a> banned state-licensed cannabis shops.</p>
<p>But the pharmaceutical approach has its own drawbacks. Rigorous standards prevent existing grow-ops from going legit. Instead, they remain illegal and <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190710/t001c-eng.htm">undercut legal producers’ prices</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, legal producers need time to build facilities and gain experience. That almost guarantees initial product shortages.</p>
<p>It’s understandable the feds chose the regulation-heavy approach. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/feds-are-blowing-smoke-about-pot-supplies-114507">as I</a> <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-liberal-claims-about-cannabis-legalization-dont-add-up/">and others</a> <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-liberals-are-blowing-smoke-with-claim-they-wiped-out-half-of-illegal-cannabis-market">have complained</a>, they shouldn’t be denying its limitations.</p>
<h2>Head-spinning spin</h2>
<p>Already in January, Border Security Minister Bill Blair was implausibly bragging that cannabis supplies were “<a href="https://twitter.com/BillBlair/status/1085649196558872577">adequate</a>” and “<a href="https://twitter.com/BillBlair/status/1090643226254561285">exceed existing demand</a>.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1090643226254561285"}"></div></p>
<p>That was despite government data showing <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/market/dried.html">legal production</a> met less than a fifth of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/robcannabispro/article-canada-is-a-tale-of-two-cannabis-shortages/">Canada’s dry cannabis needs</a> that month. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/clarenville-pot-shop-closing-1.4997670">Newfoundland store even closed</a> due to the shortages.</p>
<p>In March, Health Canada spokespeople similarly said “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/cannabis-supply-black-market-1.5074428">there is not — as some have suggested — a national shortage</a>.” That was when shortages were keeping Québec’s shops closed <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/sqdc-cannabis-seven-days-a-week-supply-shortage-1.5138599">three days a week</a> and <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/cannabis-shortage-continues-five-months-after-legalization-1.4355221">preventing hundreds of Alberta store openings</a>.</p>
<p>Those premature claims only added to the frustrations felt by retailers and consumers.</p>
<p>However, some other criticisms of the government seem frivolous. </p>
<h2>Other complaints</h2>
<p>For example, some critics say the government legalized too slowly. <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-liberals-are-blowing-smoke-with-claim-they-wiped-out-half-of-illegal-cannabis-market">Edibles should have been allowed sooner</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-vs-black-market-can-it-compete-104915">better compete with black markets</a>, they say.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that wasn’t realistic. Given limited regulatory resources, it made sense to legalize simpler dry and oil products first. That allowed another year to figure out the rest.</p>
<p>Besides, producers have struggled to supply just two product categories. More categories would have meant more severe shortages.</p>
<p>Conversely, other observers argue <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-liberal-claims-about-cannabis-legalization-dont-add-up/">legalization went too quickly</a>. They think governments should have resolved problems like product shortfalls and <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/back-to-school/the-truth-is-everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-cannabis-is-blather">impaired driving</a> before beginning sales.</p>
<p>Again, that’s unrealistic. First, legalization has been discussed since 1972’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/10/11/canada-cannabis-timeline_a_23558319/">Le Dain Report</a>; 46 years isn’t rushing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293603/original/file-20190923-54759-brlu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sales clerk helps customers at a retail cannabis store in Manitoba in April 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, the government only has four years between elections. Had it moved more slowly, legalization wouldn’t have happened.</p>
<p>Finally, many problems require research to resolve. Since legalization, Health Canada has issued <a href="https://twitter.com/GovCanHealth/status/1170083044772012033">145 research licences</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/system-swamped-canada-cant-keep-requests-study-cannabis">hundreds more are pending</a>. Studies have already examined <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3340680_code891250.pdf?abstractid=3310456&mirid=1">grow-op lights</a>, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3319762">black market financing</a> and <a href="http://cmajopen.ca/content/7/3/E454.full?sid=3ec14942-9196-468c-8d1b-057d26bd4f5a">alternative retailing strategies</a>.</p>
<h2>Canadian compromises</h2>
<p>Canada has come a long way since 2001, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/10/11/canada-cannabis-timeline_a_23558319/">when the government began the process of legalizing medical cannabis</a>. In a sense, we’re <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/24/health/medical-marijuana-legal-australia-irpt/index.html">15 years ahead of Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/medicinal-cannabis-legalised-access-marijuana-nhs-a8903051.html">17 ahead of Britain</a>.</p>
<p>Here, recreational users now grumble about <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-quality-involves-careful-science-and-carefree-highs-118679">product quality</a> and <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/cannabis-business/quebec-petition-calls-for-provincial-cannabis-retailer-to-ban-single-use-pot-packaging">wasteful packaging</a>. But in the U.K., epileptic children still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/20/mother-sells-house-buy-daughter-medical-cannabis">struggle to access medical cannabis oil</a>.</p>
<p>Yes, legalization has been a muddled mess of compromises and glitches. It still needs years of work. But at least it happened. And it’s taken a bite out of black markets. So it should be considered a typical Canadian success story.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Illegal cannabis products still dominate the market. But a fanciful election promise has become mainstream reality.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1230592019-09-20T12:36:43Z2019-09-20T12:36:43ZIt’s high time someone studied marijuana taxes – so we did<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293047/original/file-20190918-187945-1gtv7pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bill Blazina, 73, uses a high-potency marijuana oil as a medical marijuana patient, but he can't afford it at a recreational marijuana store.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Medical-Marijuana-Shrinking-Market/aae3311d6daf430b83e455ff2a572b43/3/0">AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Consumers don’t seem to mind <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/americans-paying-more-taxes-food-clothing-and-shelter/">paying sales taxes</a> on things like food and clothing. Marijuana may be a different story.</p>
<p>As marijuana taxes are imposed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2018/12/26/these-states-are-most-likely-to-legalize-marijuana-in-2019/#1c874acb5add">in more states</a>, many <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizonans-could-cross-states-lines-for-legal-marijuana-but-face-risk-in-bringing-it-home-8827808">recreational marijuana users might cross interstate borders</a> to avoid them or even <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10797-019-09556-7#Fig5">hoard stocks of weed</a> in anticipation of them. If state governments don’t adjust to such behavior, it will reduce revenue and most likely increase overall marijuana consumption.</p>
<p>Not many states have studied the implications of pot taxes on consumer behavior. <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/spp/econ/victor-j-tremblay">So</a> <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/paul-thompson">we</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10797-019-09556-7">did</a>.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/salarppolicy/">Ph.D. student of public policy</a>, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10797-019-09556-7">my colleagues and I studied</a> data <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10797-019-09556-7#Notes">from marijuana users</a> in Oregon.</p>
<p>We wanted to see what the economic consequences of marijuana taxes are on this <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2018/01/10/study-legal-marijuana-could-generate-more-than-132-billion-in-federal-tax-revenue-and-1-million-jobs/">billion-dollar industry</a>. Also, we wanted to help local governments to understand them – at a time when states are increasingly relying on these new sources of revenue to <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/2017/10/oregon_pays_out_85_million_in_1.html">pay for education, health and law enforcement</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291362/original/file-20190907-175696-12v6tzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Marijuana plants in Oregon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Changing consumer behavior</h2>
<p>Although marijuana is considered a Schedule I controlled substance by the U.S. government, meaning <a href="https://www.drugs.com/csa-schedule.html">the drug has a high potential for abuse</a> and is illegal to possess, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/legal-marijuana-states-2018-1">10 states and the District of Columbia</a> have legalized the possession or sale of recreational marijuana.</p>
<p>As of 2019, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/legal-marijuana-states-2018-1">33 states have permitted medical</a> marijuana or decriminalized marijuana possession, and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/243908/two-three-americans-support-legalizing-marijuana.aspx">most Americans</a> support legalization.</p>
<p>Each state with a legalized market has <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/marijuana-taxes-state/">imposed a tax on marijuana transactions</a>. Starting on Jan. 4, 2016, Oregon officials levied <a href="https://azmarijuana.com/marijuana-news/oregons-25-recreational-marijuana-tax-begins-in-2016/">a 25% tax</a> on recreational marijuana, which generated <a href="https://news.medicalmarijuanainc.com/oregons-actual-tax-revenue-marijuana-sales-blowing-away-original-estimates/">US$60.2 million in tax revenue</a> that year alone.</p>
<p><a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/do-sin-taxes-really-change-consumer-behavior/">Research suggests</a> that taxes – particularly <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/publications/government-spending/taxing-sin">taxes on substances or activities considered harmful</a>, such as gambling, alcoholic beverages or sugary soft drinks – alter consumer behavior.</p>
<p>If consumers foresee tax changes, they may purchase and store large quantities before implementation of a tax. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1756-2171.12090">This may lower</a> overall revenue raised by the product temporarily until consumers use their stores.</p>
<p>Cross-border purchasing is likely to be a more permanent issue regarding marijuana taxation, especially in states like Oregon, where <a href="https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/USA/oregon_map.htm">large population centers are located near borders</a> of <a href="https://disa.com/map-of-marijuana-legality-by-state">other states that have also legalized</a> marijuana sales – making it easy to avoid taxes with a quick road trip.</p>
<p>Many people shifted to <a href="https://gov.oregonlive.com/bill/2016/SB1601/">untaxed medical marijuana</a> immediately <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/olcc/marijuana/Documents/Measure91.pdf">after marijuana legalization passed in Oregon</a> as you can see by the <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/DISEASESCONDITIONS/CHRONICDISEASE/MEDICALMARIJUANAPROGRAM/Documents/OMMP%20Statistic%20Snapshot%20-%2004-2019.pdf">rise of medical marijuana applications post-taxation</a>. Medical marijuana patients may also buy untaxed marijuana for friends and family, further cutting into the revenue raised.</p>
<p><iframe id="qA3sB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qA3sB/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What comes next</h2>
<p>So what can public officials do?</p>
<p>One solution is to coordinate tax rates across states to avoid cross-border purchasing.</p>
<p>Our study also suggests that health officials need to work around medical marijuana users who circumvent taxes faced by recreational users. Connecting dispensaries electronically and making the purchasing cards computer-readable to keep track of marijuana sales could help cut down on this practice.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Muhammad Salar Khan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pot taxes will change the ability of some to purchase recreational marijuana.Muhammad Salar Khan, Graduate Research Assistant, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1199142019-07-29T14:47:05Z2019-07-29T14:47:05ZEconomics of legalising cannabis – pricing and policing are crucial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285872/original/file-20190726-43136-69mvwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's money to be made from legalising cannabis.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-hands-cannabis-money-concept-selling-1119576818?src=IcEq3a-Q5mVli8ktIMSDTw-1-1&studio=1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Legalising cannabis can have major benefits for all citizens. If carried out correctly, everyone will benefit <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268118300386">from less crime</a> and stronger rule of law. Legalising the drug will especially help <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/cannabis-legalised-marijuana-protect-young-people-study-volteface-a8006221.html">protect young people</a> and may <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/cannabis-legalised-marijuana-protect-young-people-study-volteface-a8006221.html">even lower their consumption of the drug</a>. It is also a way of <a href="https://theconversation.com/analysis-reveals-economic-benefits-of-legalised-cannabis-20281">raising taxes for the state</a>, instead of fuelling criminal organisations, which currently control the illegal market.</p>
<p>These benefits are increasingly <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/the-cannabis-debate-63-per-cent-of-londoners-think-uk-should-follow-canada-and-make-cannabis-legal-a4179291.html">recognised by the public</a>. Crucial to seeing these benefits come about, is the way legalising cannabis is done and how the drug is priced once it is made legal. These are the findings from research I’ve <a href="https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=13814">carried out with colleagues in France</a>. There must be a combination of getting the price level right and cracking down on illegal activities to reach the right balance between reducing criminality and avoiding increases in cannabis consumption following legalisation.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/millions-use-cannabis-but-figures-for-how-many-become-dependent-arent-reliable-117283">Millions use cannabis, but figures for how many become dependent aren't reliable</a>
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<p>To fight the black market, the price of legal cannabis has to be relatively low. For example, it could be set around or slightly below the current illegal price. This will attract current users of the drug away from their existing dealers.</p>
<p>But if nothing else is done, this will not be enough to eradicate the black market. Dealers will simply lower their prices to attract customers back. They are able to do this because there is currently a <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/56706/1/Ending_the%20_drug_wars.pdf">high markup in the illegal market</a>. </p>
<p>There is a large range of prices and cannabis products sold illegally but the average price of high-quality cannabis is roughly US$300 per ounce in London, according to the crowd-sourced website <a href="http://www.priceofweed.com/?mloc=1">priceofweed.com</a>. This is up to three times as high as production costs based on <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/esreview/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Archambault_McNeilly_Row_I-502_PublishOnline.pdf">evidence</a> from the <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR764.html">US market</a>.</p>
<h2>Controlling consumption</h2>
<p>The increased competition that the legal market would bring would likely substantially increase consumption – not something most policy makers want. So as well as implementing a legal market, there needs to be a mix of policies to control consumption, including sanctions that are enforced against illegal activities. This would allow a government to price out dealers, while keeping the price of legal cannabis relatively high.</p>
<p>The reasoning is simple: if production or distribution costs of illegal cannabis increase, it is easier to drive criminals out of business by selling legal cannabis. <a href="https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=13814">My research shows</a> that the harsher the punishments you put in place against people selling cannabis illegally, the higher you can set the price of legal cannabis to price out dealers. We call this the “eviction price”.</p>
<p>Other instruments governments can use to increase the eviction price are to deter consumers from buying illegal cannabis through enforced sanctions or warning them against the dangers of using illegal cannabis compared to high-quality, safe products supplied on the legal market.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285873/original/file-20190726-43145-nlp822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A legal cannabis store in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/anchorage-alaska-usa-july-24-2017-1082990222?src=92SrpxowSJ64dSjCJPReBA-1-50&studio=1">Linda Harms/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Viable alternatives</h2>
<p>It’s also important to introduce incentives for illegal cannabis producers and sellers to turn their activity toward the legal sector. So as well as investment in law enforcement to crack down on criminal activity, it’s important that former cannabis dealers are given viable job alternatives. Otherwise they may just switch to selling alternative illegal drugs or close substitutes. </p>
<p>Dealers often <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/understanding-drug-selling-local-communities">live in deprived neighbourhoods</a> and are trapped in vicious cycles of crime where low aspirations and job prospects push them into illegal businesses. Investment in these communities is therefore needed to support and train those that make a living from drug dealing.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-drug-dealers-are-the-same-its-time-to-ditch-outdated-stereotypes-93773">Not all drug dealers are the same – it's time to ditch outdated stereotypes</a>
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<p>The money that will be generated by selling and taxing legal cannabis should be largely redistributed towards these kinds of initiatives. Plus, legalising cannabis may enable the police to reallocate their efforts towards other crimes, improving police effectiveness against class-A drugs and non-drug crimes. This was <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/%7Euctpimr/research/depenalization.pdf">found in the London borough of Lambeth</a> after penalties were reduced in 2001 for those holding small amounts of cannabis.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Prohibition-United-States-history-1920-1933e">History also shows</a> that prohibition increases violent crimes. Famous gangsters such as Al Capone in Chicago in the 1920s profited from the imbalance between demand and supply of alcohol by establishing organised crime to supply and serve alcohol illegally in speakeasies. In illegal markets, violence is often seen as the only way to resolve conflicts and secure market power.</p>
<p>Our research was inspired by recent examples of cannabis legalisation in Canada and Uruguay. The stated objectives in both countries was to combat drug-related crime. It is too early to evaluate the overall effects of these policies but evidence from Canada suggests that illegal transactions linked to the black market <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3319762">shrunk as a result of legalisation</a>. And we also learnt from what did not work so well there: a shortage of legal supply helped the illegal market persist. So it’s important to avoid making the same mistakes and propose more effective policies to control the overall consumption of cannabis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Mesnard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To fight the black market, the price of legal cannabis has to be relatively low. But if nothing else is done, the black market will persist.Alice Mesnard, Reader in Economics, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186792019-06-18T23:49:04Z2019-06-18T23:49:04ZCannabis quality involves careful science and carefree highs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279890/original/file-20190617-118514-242fsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4679%2C3116&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cannabis producers must ensure the quality of their products is high, but not too "high."
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimitri Bang/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada’s legal cannabis industry continues to make progress. <a href="https://theconversation.com/feds-are-blowing-smoke-about-pot-supplies-114507">Product shortages</a> are decreasing. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5383887/quebec-cannabis-sales-first-year/">Store</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/cannabis-license-moratorium-lifted-1.5155856">numbers</a> are increasing. And <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2019/06/health-canada-finalizes-regulations-for-the-production-and-sale-of-edible-cannabis-cannabis-extracts-and-cannabis-topicals.html">edible cannabis regulations</a> have just been finalized.</p>
<p>With these basics falling into place, the industry and its regulators can focus more on <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-vs-black-market-can-it-compete-104915">competing with black markets</a>. Product quality is one area where legal suppliers might have advantages. But to deliver good quality cannabis, producers must simultaneously aim for both careful science and carefree highs.</p>
<p>This dual goal is partly due to government policy. Cannabis producers and products are federally regulated, much like pharmaceuticals. Health Canada oversees <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/industry-licensees-applicants/applying-licence.html">producer licences</a>, <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2018-144/page-12.html#h-848497">package designs</a> and medical cannabis sales.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, cannabis retailing is provincially regulated, much as with alcohol. In Ontario, for example, <a href="https://ocs.ca/#/verify-age">one provincial agency</a> runs wholesaling and online sales. Another handles <a href="https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/private-retail-licensing-and-regulation">retail licences</a> and <a href="https://learn.cannsell.ca/">employee qualifications</a>.</p>
<h2>Preventing defects</h2>
<p>This regulatory approach emphasizes conformance to rules and specifications. Such <em>conformance quality</em> helps prevent product defects and consumer harm.</p>
<p>For example, cannabis producers must follow Health Canada’s <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2018-144/page-11.html">Good Production Practices</a> (GPP). These include <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/drugs-health-products/cannabis-testing-pesticide-requirements.html">testing to ensure products</a> don’t contain pesticides or mould, but do contain the promised levels of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/about.html">THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol)</a>.</p>
<p>Such testing should help legal products be more reliable than black-market ones. Indeed, some <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1171294/sqdc-benefices-anticipes-20-millions-2019-2020-jean-francois-bergeron-cannabis">consumers have found</a> their moderate-strength legal products provide the same high as their supposedly high-strength illegal ones did. Evidently some illicit suppliers exaggerate their products’ attributes. They know they won’t be tested.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scarce-retail-weed-shops-means-most-canadians-still-use-black-market-pot-113503">Scarce retail weed shops means most Canadians still use black market pot</a>
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<p>Health Canada also requires producers and distributors to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/tracking-system.html">track all their cannabis</a>. Each month they must report the amounts harvested, processed, or sold.</p>
<p>Many organizations exceed these legal minimums. For instance, retailers aren’t required to test products. But Québec’s cannabis agency tests <a href="https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/about-the-sqdc/acces-to-information/Publications">10 products per supplier</a> each month to confirm their contents.</p>
<p>Similarly, some producers have adopted <a href="https://www.cannabiscomplianceinc.com/application-of-gmp-in-the-cannabis-industry/">international quality standards</a> like <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151222005626/en/MedReleaf-Corp.-ISO-90012008-Certified-Licensed-Producer">ISO 9000</a>. Others have formed a <a href="https://www.theleafnews.com/news/new-cannabis-industry-group-focuses-on-quality-control-509079022.html">cannabis industry quality association</a>.</p>
<h2>Grow from cuttings</h2>
<p>Producers do other things to ensure product consistency. Many grow their plants from cuttings rather than seeds. This helps each plant match its “mother’s” traits.</p>
<p>Indoor growing can also improve consistency. It’s more expensive than using greenhouses or open fields, but it gives more control over <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3310456">growing conditions</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these efforts, problems sometimes occur. Producers have recalled <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/sr/srb/sra.html?dmn=healthycanadians.gc.ca%2Frecall-alert-rappel-avis%2F&allq=cannabis&wb-srch-sub=Search+alerts#wb-land">13 cannabis products</a> since October. Some merely had <a href="https://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/69924r-eng.php">labelling errors</a>. But others concerned <a href="https://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/68798r-eng.php">mould contamination</a>, <a href="https://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/69656r-eng.php">insufficient THC</a> or <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bonify-recalled-cannabis-manitoba-1.5007446">unlicensed production</a>.</p>
<p>(Incidentally, Health Canada encourages consumers to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/recalls-adverse-reactions-reporting/report-side-effects-cannabis-products.html">report any adverse side effects</a> they experience from cannabis use.)</p>
<p>Of course, consumers don’t just want to avoid problems. They also want to gain benefits.</p>
<h2>Designing products</h2>
<p>So producers must design products to satisfy and delight their customers. But ensuring good <em>design quality</em> is difficult. That’s because <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canadians-are-buying-cannabis-and-getting-high-now-that-its-legal-111464">consumers’ preferences vary widely</a> and product designs offer many options.</p>
<p>The most basic product format is dried cannabis for smoking. But even it requires many decisions. Producers must select plant varieties and growing conditions that will yield <a href="https://www.leafly.ca/news/cannabis-101/leaflys-visual-quality-guide-to-selecting-cannabis">high quality</a> “<a href="https://weedmaps.com/learn/introduction/how-to-buy-cannabis/">top shelf</a>” flowers. And they must choose whether to sell the result as dried flower, pre-rolled joints or even <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/cannabis-business/b-c-based-company-to-start-rolling-out-marijuana-cigarettes">filter-tipped “cigarettes”</a>.</p>
<p>Oils and other extracts start with dried plants and add more process steps. Oils can be extracted, purified, blended and diluted into many formulations.</p>
<p>Cannabis foods, drinks and lotions combine extracts with additional ingredients and additional decisions. For example, should cannabis-infused beverages taste like cannabis or like something else? Should they be sweet, sour, salty or spicy?</p>
<h2>Creating experiences</h2>
<p>But since cannabis is a drug, the quality of its effect also matters. Cannabis producers are clearly designing tangible goods. But they might want to adapt concepts relating to intangible “experiential” services like entertainment. What experience should they offer the consumer?</p>
<p>Recreational users desire pleasant effects ranging from mild relaxation to powerful highs. When smoking cannabis, they also care about its aroma.</p>
<p>By contrast, “wellness” users seek better health, while medical users need <a href="https://nccih.nih.gov/health/marijuana">specific treatments</a>. These consumers mostly prefer cannabis oils. Those allow more precise dosages and avoid smoking’s harms.</p>
<p>As producers gain experience, they could increasingly experiment with cannabis product formulations. Which mixes of THC, CBD and other cannabinoids give the best recreational highs? Or the most medical relief?</p>
<p>Some experimentation is already under way for beverages. With traditional cannabis drinks, the buzz arrives and fades much more slowly than that of alcohol. Companies are consequently developing <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5221654/moosehead-breweries-cannabis/">beverages with faster onset and recovery times</a>. These will better suit “social drinking” situations.</p>
<h2>Extra challenges</h2>
<p>One quality challenge facing product designers is scientific. Cannabis contains THC, CBD and many other <a href="https://www.leafly.ca/news/cannabis-101/list-major-cannabinoids-cannabis-effects">cannabinoid chemicals</a> whose effects are not well understood. So, much trial-and-error will be needed at first.</p>
<p>Other challenges are regulatory. For example, producers are already designing edibles like <a href="https://www.thegrowthop.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/alberta-cannabis-producers-retailers-already-in-gear-for-legal-edibles/wcm/53adac55-8520-4365-b934-4ea6d99a6f9b">cannabis chocolates and sugars</a>, but they can’t test them with consumers until October. So product feedback techniques like tasting panels aren’t yet possible.</p>
<p>Product designers also must deal with inherent contradictions in public policy goals. Legal cannabis products must be appealing enough to draw existing users away from illicit suppliers. But not so appealing that they attract many new users, or accidentally get ingested by <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cannabis-is-medicine-dont-make-it-taste-good-2019060516764">unsuspecting adults</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/children-sent-to-hospital-after-eating-cannabis-infused-chocolate-bar-1.5018556">children</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/what-to-do-if-rover-eats-your-cannabis-1.5166665">or pets</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, cannabis quality must be high, but not too “high.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To deliver good-quality cannabis, producers must simultaneously aim for both careful science and carefree highs.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1169192019-05-15T23:20:14Z2019-05-15T23:20:14ZCanada’s legalization of weed edibles is another global social experiment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273854/original/file-20190510-183112-ri14y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cannabis edibles will be legal in October. Is Canada ready for it?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This October, cannabis-infused edibles <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5096541/marijuana-cannabis-edibles-canada/">will be fully legal on the Canadian market.</a> </p>
<p>Despite claims that broader cannabis legalization would change the social, economic and cultural fabric of the country, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cannabis-legalization-crime-1.4923297">there is little evidence to suggest that this is the case.</a></p>
<p>The government itself claimed initially that its primary intent was to legalize cannabis without normalizing it. That’s exactly what it delivered. Allowing Canadians to have access to legal cannabis while keeping the social stigma against routine marijuana use alive was arguably the result the government was looking for. </p>
<p>The rollout of commercially available dried cannabis flower was relatively uneventful, though shortages and high price points still allow the black market to thrive. Beyond the hoopla, nothing has significantly changed. As illegal vendors continue to prosper, the social stigma has remained, evidenced by a recent study by Dalhousie University. </p>
<p>This recent study released in May suggests that Canadians remain supportive of legalized cannabis, <a href="https://www.dal.ca/faculty/management/news-events/news/2019/05/09/release__canadians_now_less_enthusiastic_about_the_prospect_of_legalized_edibles.html">but their enthusiasm for legalized cannabis and edibles has dropped in recent months</a>. </p>
<p>Now, edible cannabis policy is in the spotlight as Western countries around the globe look to capitalize on this frontier market. Canada is once again acting as a global social experiment, demonstrating to international political and business communities best and worst market practices.</p>
<h2>Edibles are big business</h2>
<p>Generally, consumers remain <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224417306209#sec3">open to the edible cannabis market</a>. In American states where cannabis is legal for recreational use, edibles account for <a href="https://www.greenentrepreneur.com/article/323292">12 to 15 per cent of the market.</a> In Canada, sales of cannabis-infused edible products are projected to reach <a href="https://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/edibles-sales-new-report/">$4.1 billion by 2022.</a> </p>
<p>While the edible market offers opportunities for prosperity for cannabis producers and retailers, there remain challenges ahead for those looking to enter this market. Negative media portrayals <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5249072/canadians-less-open-marijuana-edibles-poll/">have raised concerns among consumers who have yet to sample edibles.</a> Cannabis ingestion among children presents a serious public health issue, expected to increase with the advent of legally available edible products, <a href="https://budderweeds.com/cannabis-edibles-in-canada-what-to-expect-in-2019/">such as gummy candies and baked goods that appeal to kids.</a></p>
<p>Some consumers who currently want to integrate cannabis-infused food into their diets without turning to the black market for edibles — and without increasing their sugar intake — cook with cannabis. But that carries great risks that aren’t being given any consideration by regulators.</p>
<p>The effects of cannabis-infused edibles vary greatly and are dependant on dose, gender, weight and metabolism. For novice users, edibles present a chance of accidentally consuming too much as they experiment in getting the dosage right for their own personal circumstances. </p>
<p>There are multiple social media how-to videos on baking and cooking with cannabis, but these aren’t monitored for the accuracy of the information provided, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2017.10.060">further leaving consumers open to cannabis-related mishaps.</a></p>
<h2>‘Walking a fine line’</h2>
<p>And so the government is walking a fine line between public safety and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.12.001">promoting the sale of cannabis as a recreational intoxicant</a>, particularly when it comes to edibles.</p>
<p>As uncertainty grows among consumers about edibles, how much of it is fed by public service messaging is unclear. Certainly, mixed messaging does little to alleviate confusion. Health Canada guidelines and recent media coverage may be contributing to an increase in uncertainty about experimenting with edibles. Health Canada’s uncompromising regulatory framework is making many feel that edibles are welcomed in Canada, to a certain degree. </p>
<p>While public safety campaigns <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/don-t-drive-high.html">target sober driving</a> and address <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lego-cannabis-illegal-pot-store-timberlea-1.5127330">child safety</a> regarding cannabis-infused candy, businesses looking to market cannabis must adhere to <a href="https://www.the-cma.org/regulatory/cannabis">strict guidelines</a> that limit the scope and reach of what they can promote.</p>
<p>The regulations set by the federal government surrounding the legal sale of cannabis edibles are confusing to retailers. There are of course mandatory regulatory requirements regarding testing and dosage. Labelling guidelines will be the same as those for food and pharmaceuticals. However, the low THC limit of 10 milligrams per edible, and the lack of clarity around how much THC is allowable per package, <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/resources/proposed-regulations-edible-cannabis-extracts-topicals.html">has the potential to cut into a business’ bottom line</a>.</p>
<p>The Dalhousie survey revealed how illiterate Canadians are about cannabinoids. <a href="https://www.dal.ca/faculty/management/news-events/news/2019/05/09/release__canadians_now_less_enthusiastic_about_the_prospect_of_legalized_edibles.html">Only 31 per cent of respondents were able to detect the non-psychoactive, therapeutic nature of CBD</a>. CBD is of great interest to the food industry, but few understand it. More public education is needed.</p>
<p>Overall, the legalization of cannabis in October 2018 allowed for new markets in cannabis distribution. Adding edibles to the mix this fall isn’t likely to fuel broad cultural changes in the way Canadians imbibe in the short term. Canadians, by and large, have accepted cannabis, but policies are preventing businesses from catching up and leading the rest of the world in cannabis production and distribution. So far, that’s a missed opportunity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cannabis edibles will be legal in October. But the regulations set by Ottawa on cannabis edibles are confusing to retailers, making it difficult for Canada to lead the way for other countries.Sylvain Charlebois, Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie UniversityJanet Music, Research Associate at Agri-Food Analytics Lab from the School of Information Management, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1051012019-05-14T22:50:23Z2019-05-14T22:50:23ZCannabis legalization must include cannabis equity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274144/original/file-20190513-183096-1eizmtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C8%2C2991%2C1958&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A flag is flown during the annual marijuana 420 gathering in Toronto. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada’s federal government is currently working to pass a bill that would provide <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cannabis/article-amnesty-program-for-canadians-convicted-of-simple-cannabis-possession/">pardons for people convicted of minor cannabis possession</a>. With a federal election around the corner, it may be too little, too late.</p>
<p>As a result of <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/lawyers-contemplate-class-action-to-push-government-into-cannabis-amnesty">mounting pressure</a>, Canada’s federal government is now struggling to pass this bill before politicians leave the capital for the summer break. </p>
<p>If the bill does not pass, it is unlikely to do so before a national election this fall, leaving tens of thousands of lives hanging in the balance. </p>
<h2>Racialized law enforcement</h2>
<p>It has been a little over six months since Canada legalized recreational cannabis, and by most accounts this national experiment has been a relative success. What Canadian legalization still lacks, however, are <a href="https://www.hilltimes.com/2018/01/22/cannabis-legalization-canada-case-pardons-preferential-licencing/130906">the important measures needed to repair the damage caused by almost a century of prohibition</a>. </p>
<p>American legislators should take note.</p>
<p>As is the case in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480616677493">many other jurisdictions</a>, Canadian drug law enforcement is heavily racialized. Data gathered from <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/07/06/toronto-marijuana-arrests-reveal-startling-racial-divide.html">Toronto</a> and other major <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/d35eyq/black-and-indigenous-people-are-overrepresented-in-canadas-weed-arrests">Canadian cities</a> show that Black and Indigenous people have been arrested for minor cannabis possession at rates as high as five and nine times that of whites, respectively. </p>
<p>This means that <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-cannabis-is-legalized-lets-remember-amnesty-103419">Black and Indigenous people have been disproportionately burdened</a> with the outcomes of a criminal record — reduced educational and employment opportunities, poorer housing prospects and travel restrictions — for engaging in an activity enjoyed by a significant proportion of the Canadian population.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Prof. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah presented a TEDx talk, The Untapped Promise of Cannabis Legalization, as part of their Mississauga series.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A lesson for the United States</h2>
<p>Unlike the narrative now dominant among the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/us/politics/marijuana-legalize-democrats.html">2020 Democratic</a> hopefuls, Canada’s move towards legalization was never about social justice or reparations. Having promised recreational cannabis as part of his campaign platform, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government rushed to draft and pass <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-24.5/">the Cannabis Act</a> in time to help them secure a political win. </p>
<p>Addressing the racialized harms of cannabis prohibition barely featured in political debates over legalization in Canada. Instead, the focus was on promoting public health and diverting profits away from the illicit market.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-cannabis-is-legalized-lets-remember-amnesty-103419">As cannabis is legalized, let's remember amnesty</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>While we dither over whether to provide pot pardons, equally substantive equity measures such as the <a href="https://youtu.be/3zhuo3aizOY">reinvestment of cannabis tax revenue into the communities most harmed by prohibition</a>, and the incorporation of the drug war’s victims into the legal cannabis industry go largely unrealized. For legalization to be a true success, these measures must be forthcoming.</p>
<p>Opponents were right to <a href="https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/how-the-cannabis-industry-defeated-legalization-in-new-york">derail legalization in New York state last month</a> because the proposed bill failed to adequately address social justice issues up front. </p>
<p>Given the nature of the political process, it can be all too easy for politicians to satisfy themselves with half-baked policies. If there is one thing that American lawmakers can learn from the Canadian example, it is that cannabis equity must be incorporated into legalization from the outset. </p>
<p>Given the lack of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymargolis/2018/09/20/the-top-cannabis-companies-are-dominated-by-men/#63b3bc50565e">racial and economic diversity</a> in established cannabis industries, not doing so is likely to further entrench the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/boehner-marijuana-blacks-prison.html">inequalities created</a> by the war on drugs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akwasi Owusu-Bempah is Director of Research for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty.</span></em></p>Canada’s federal government is running out of time before the summer session to pass a bill that would pardon those convicted of minor cannabis possession.Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Assistant professor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1129352019-03-15T10:43:13Z2019-03-15T10:43:13ZMarijuana is a lot more than just THC - a pharmacologist looks at the untapped healing compounds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263129/original/file-20190311-86693-ga1zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Assorted cannabis bud strains.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/assorted-cannabis-bud-strains-glass-jars-526723486">Roxana Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Medical marijuana is legal in 33 states as of November 2018. Yet the federal government still insists <a href="https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm421168.htm">marijuana has no legal use</a> and is easy to abuse. In the meantime, medical marijuana dispensaries have an increasing array of products available for pain, anxiety, sex and more. </p>
<p>The glass counters and their jars of products in the dispensary resemble an 18th century pharmacy. Many strains for sale have evocative and magical names like Blue Dream, Bubba Kush and Chocolope. But what does it all mean? Are there really differences in the medical qualities of the various strains? Or, are the different strains with the fanciful names all just advertising gimmicks?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263763/original/file-20190313-123538-x37pr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rafael, a Chumash who shared Californian Native American cultural knowledge with anthropologists in the 1800s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Rafael%2C_a_Chumash_who_shared_cultural_knowledge_with_Anthropologists.jpg">Leon de Cessac</a></span>
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<p>I am a professor in the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. I have lived in California a long time and remember the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love. While in graduate school, I worked with professor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin">Alexander Shulgin</a>, the father of designer drugs, who taught me the chemistry of medicinal plants. Afterwards, while a professor at USC, I learned <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/ecam/neh072">Chumash healing</a> from a Native American Chumash healer for 14 years from 1998 until 2012. She taught me how to make medicines from Californian plants, but not marijuana, which is not native to the U.S. Currently, I am teaching a course in medical marijuana to pharmacy students. </p>
<p>If there is one thing about marijuana that is certain: In small doses it can boost libido in men and women, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201808/the-largest-best-studies-yet-sex-and-marijuana">leading to more sex</a>. But can marijuana really be used for medical conditions? </p>
<h2>What are cannabinoids?</h2>
<p>New research is revealing that marijuana is more than just a source of cannabinoids, chemicals that may bind to cannabinoid receptors in our brains, which are used to get high. The most well-known is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Marijuana is a particularly rich source of medicinal compounds that we have only begun to explore. In order to harness the full potential of the compounds in this plant, society needs to overcome misconceptions about marijuana and look at what research clearly says about the medical value.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263491/original/file-20190312-86703-17mhtg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The dried bud of a Kush cannabis plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Kush_close.jpg">Kerouachomsky</a></span>
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<p>The FDA has already made some moves in this direction by approving prescription drugs that come from marijuana including dronabinol, nabilone, nabiximols and cannabidiol. Dronabinol and nabilone are cannabinoids that are used for nausea. Nabiximols – which contain THC, the compound most responsible for marijuana’s high and cannabidiol, which does not induce a high – are used to treat <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/All-Disorders/Multiple-Sclerosis-Information-Page">multiple sclerosis</a>. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is also used to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/06/26/fda-approves-first-cbd-oil-derived-marijuana-treat-epilepsy/733567002/">treat some types of epilepsy</a>.</p>
<p>Marijuana, originally from the Altai Mountains in Central and East Asia, contains at <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/bs.apha.2017.03.004">least 85 cannabinoids</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/bs.apha.2017.03.004">27 terpenes</a>, fragrant oils that are produced by many herbs and flowers that may be active, drug-like compounds. THC is the cannabinoid everyone wants in order to get high. It is produced from THC acid – which constitutes up to 25 percent of the plant’s dry weight – by smoking or baking any part of the marijuana plant. </p>
<p>THC mimics a naturally occurring neurotransmitter called <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Anandamide">anandamide</a> that works as a signaling molecule in the brain. Anandamide attaches to proteins in the brain called cannabinoid receptors, which then send signals related to pleasure, memory, thinking, perception and coordination, to name a few. THC works by hijacking these natural cannabinoid receptors, triggering a profound high.</p>
<p>Tetrahydrocannabivarinic acid, another cannabinoid, can constitute up to 10 percent of the dry weight. It is converted to another compound that probably contributes to a high, <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/tetrahydrocannabivarin">tetrahydrocannabivarin</a>, when smoked or ingested in baked goods. Potent varieties like Doug’s Varin and Tangie may contain even higher concentrations. </p>
<h2>Medical properties of marijuana</h2>
<p>But not all cannabinoids make you high. Cannabidiol, a cannabinoid similar to THC, and its acid are also present in marijuana, especially in certain varieties. But these do not cause euphoria. The cannabidiol molecule interacts with a variety of receptors – including cannabinoid and serotonin receptors and transient receptor potential cation channels (TRP) – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00379-8">to reduce seizures</a>, combat anxiety and produce other effects. </p>
<p>Marijuana also contains several monoterpenoids – small, aromatic molecules – that have a wide range of activities <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ph5101045">including pain</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2008.11.004">anxiety relief and that work by inhibiting TRP channels.</a></p>
<p>Myrcene is the most abundant monoterpenoid, a type or terpene, in marijuana. It <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12587690">can relax muscles</a>. Other terpenes such as pinene, linalool, limonene and the sesquiterpene, beta-caryophyllene are <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/5/10/1045">pain relievers, especially when applied directly to the skin</a> as a liniment. Some of these terpenes may add to the high when marijuana is smoked.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263499/original/file-20190312-86717-znslz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depending on the medical condition, oils or lotions made from cannabis may be a better choice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/healthy-cannabis-hemp-natural-products-medical-1123351781">sangriana/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do all these varieties do?</h2>
<p>Many different varieties of marijuana are on the market and are alleged to treat a range of diseases. The FDA has no oversight for these claims, since the FDA does not recognize marijuana as a legal product. </p>
<p>Strains of marijuana are grown that produce more THC than cannadidiol or vice versa. Other varieties have abundant monoterpenoids. How do you know that the strain you choose is legitimate with probable medical benefits? Each strain should <a href="https://b2b.gocaliva.com/what-is-cannabis-certificate-of-analysis-coa-california/">have a certificate of analysis</a> that shows you how much of each active compound is present in the product you buy. Many states have a bureau of cannabis control that verifies these certificates of analysis. However, many certificates of analysis do not show the monoterpenoids present in the marijuana. The analysis of monoterpenoids is difficult since they evaporate from the plant material. If you are looking for a strain high in myrcene or linalool, ask for proof. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263764/original/file-20190313-123554-12w51i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Certificate of analysis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Marijuana can improve several conditions, but it can also make others worse and can have nasty side effects. </p>
<p>As recreational use has become more widespread, <a href="http://doi.org/10.14309/crj.2018.3">marijuana hyperemesis syndrome</a> is becoming more of a problem in our society. Some people vomit uncontrollably after smoking marijuana regularly. It can be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28494183">treated</a> by rubbing a cream made from capsaicin, from chili peppers, on the abdomen. Capsaicin cream is available in pharmacies. </p>
<p>Also, high THC varieties of marijuana, such as Royal Gorilla and Fat Banana, can <a href="http://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.17r11839">cause anxiety and even psychosis</a> in some people.</p>
<p>Researchers have also shown that anxiety can be effectively treated with strains that have more cannabidiol and linalool. It may be best to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045796018000239">rub a cannabidiol balm or lotion on your cheeks to relieve anxiety</a>. </p>
<p>Other conditions that studies have shown are improved by marijuana are: <a href="http://doi.org/10.2217/fon-2018-0530">cancer induced nausea</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.2337/dc12-2303">Type 2 diabetes</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00379-8">two forms of epilepsy</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.6358">HIV-induced weight gain</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1089/can.2016.0009">irritable bowel syndrome</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/phar.1673">migraines</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1517/14712598.2012.721765">multiple sclerosis</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/1756-185X.13146">osteoarthritis</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/kei183">rheumatoid arthritis</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.6358">pain</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.6358">chronic pain</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s40261-014-0212-3">post-traumatic stress disorder</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.6358">sleep disorders</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25264643">traumatic brain injury</a>. </p>
<p>For some of these conditions, studies show that eating or topically applying marijuana products rather than smoking is recommended. </p>
<p>Clearly, more research is needed from the scientific community to help guide the appropriate, safe use of marijuana. However, the FDA does not recognize the use of medical marijuana. This makes funding for research on marijuana difficult to find. Perhaps the cannabis industry should consider funding scientific research on marijuana. But conflicts of interest may become a concern as we have seen with drug company-sponsored studies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James David Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Marijuana is known for delivering a good high. But the plant’s uses go well beyond the recreational. Marijuana contains a trove of medicinal compounds whose uses we are just now discovering.James David Adams, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114642019-02-18T15:58:09Z2019-02-18T15:58:09ZHow Canadians are buying cannabis and getting high now that it’s legal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259324/original/file-20190215-56212-dj2lj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data from provinces varies, but it generally shows Canadian cannabis users prefer to buy dry flowers (to smoke or vape their weed), want high-quality products and prefer shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores rather than online. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sharon McCutcheon/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was much speculation throughout 2018 about Canada’s soon-to-be-legal cannabis market. But only recently has data become available that shows what cannabis consumers really want and actually buy.</p>
<p>For example, Statistics Canada recently released its <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190207/dq190207b-eng.htm?HPA=1">National Cannabis Survey</a>. The most-discussed finding is that cannabis use did not jump after legalization in October. The proportion of Canadians using it stayed around 15 per cent.</p>
<p>That’s good news for politicians who supported legalization, and for <a href="http://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/41/E1218">physicians concerned</a> that legality would prompt surging usage.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-friendly-campuses-i-dont-think-so-100650">Marijuana-friendly campuses? I don’t think so …</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Product quality is key</h2>
<p>The survey also asked consumers their top three reasons for choosing cannabis suppliers. Concern about product quality and safety was the top-ranked reason.</p>
<p>That priority should help licensed producers <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-vs-black-market-can-it-compete-104915">compete against black markets</a>. Their products undergo extensive <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/drugs-health-products/cannabis-testing-pesticide-requirements.html">chemical testing</a> that underground growers avoid. But excessive recalls <a href="http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/68982r-eng.php">for labelling</a> or <a href="http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/68798r-eng.php">contamination problems</a> could erode that edge.</p>
<p>Finding products with the desired ingredient mix, and potency, was the number three consumer priority. That factor could also benefit legal producers. Their government-mandated labels specify that information.</p>
<p>But the desired products must be available. <a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-weed-clues-to-canadas-cannabis-shortages-109991">Product shortages</a> are an ongoing problem. </p>
<p>And cannabis foods and drinks aren’t yet legal. That’s a crucial gap, as U.S. experience shows. Edibles constitute <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/canada/toronto-star/20190201/281487867584217">43 per cent of demand</a> in Colorado and California.</p>
<h2>Diverging purchases</h2>
<p>Other consumer preferences appear in Health Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data/supply-demand.html">fourth quarter sales data</a>. They show recreational cannabis customers strongly prefer dry cannabis (flowers and leaves) over cannabis oils. Sales were split 74 per cent dry and 26 per cent oil. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cannabis-nb-jobs-sales-stores-new-brunswick-1.4992683">New Brunswick</a> and <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/economie/quebec/201901/22/01-5212038-la-sqdc-dit-accaparer-35-des-ventes-de-cannabis-au-pays.php">Québec</a> both reported even stronger dry preferences of 90 per cent.</p>
<p>By contrast, medical clients favour oils. They bought just 28 per cent dry cannabis. Producers likely knew medical and recreational preferences would differ. But the extent may have surprised them and contributed to dry product shortages.</p>
<p>Incidentally, a note to Health Canada: Kudos for posting monthly sales and inventory numbers. One suggestion: please report the monthly cannabis harvest too. Knowing the “fresh” cannabis count each month would let us gauge the industry’s capacity and growth. Currently, those vital figures are impossible to estimate reliably.</p>
<p>Recreational consumers also prefer small purchases, well below the 30-gram possession limit. Québec’s mostly in-store transactions averaged just 6.6 grams and $47 each.</p>
<p>Those numbers suggest customers were sampling small amounts. Experienced users might have sought replacements for existing, formerly illegal favourites. Meanwhile, first-timers explored the newly legal selection.</p>
<p>Ontario’s cannabis agency hasn’t released such sales details. But <a href="https://ocs.ca/blogs/news/ocs-supply-agreements-additional-licensed-producers#/verify-age/success">combining</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4574517/ontario-cannabis-store-sales/">its</a> <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1148626/livraisons-cannabis-ontario-projet-pilote?depuisRecherche=true">reports</a> with <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4852689/pei-nova-scotia-bought-most-marijuana-canada/">Statistics Canada sales data</a> suggest its orders were larger, possibly because they were all online. They perhaps averaged $70 in October and $100 in November.</p>
<h2>Price penalties</h2>
<p>Where underground markets have an edge is pricing. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cost-cannabis-risen-since-legalization-1.4973255">Statistics Canada estimates average nationwide prices</a> at around $9.70 per gram for legal products versus $6.51 for illegal ones. That’s unfortunate. Low price was the second most important criterion for cannabis consumers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259327/original/file-20190215-56204-1nahfkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canadians prefer smoke-able or vape-able weed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Québec’s approach is interesting here. With an average price of just $7.27 per gram, it might be losing money on sales. But it’s more competitive with illegal vendors.</p>
<h2>Physical stores matter</h2>
<p>Cannabis consumers also prefer brick-and-mortar stores over online shopping. In-store purchases accounted for 80 per cent of sales in Québec. They hit <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-looks-at-adding-new-cannabis-stores-1.5020217">94 per cent in Nova Scotia</a> and 95 per cent in New Brunswick.</p>
<p>Stores let shoppers see and smell products, plus receive advice from staff. By accepting cash and retaining no customer information, they also avoid online privacy problems.</p>
<p>The preference for physical shops, combined with their relative availability, could partly explain provincial sales differences. For example, New Brunswick’s stores were plentiful, at one per 39,000 people. It had correspondingly high purchases of $6.87 per resident during October and November. Only $0.31 of that was online.</p>
<p>By contrast, Québec’s stores were scant — one per 699,000 people. Relative to New Brunswick, its per capita sales were lower overall at $2.53, but higher online at $0.51.</p>
<p>Ontario meanwhile had no legal stores. Its $1.54 of online sales per resident were lower than the other two provinces’ overall numbers but higher than their online ones.</p>
<p>These sales comparisons suggest the absence of legal shops diverts some cannabis users online. But most stick with black markets.</p>
<p>The cannabis survey supports that idea. Availability of cannabis at convenient times and places were consumers’ fourth and fifth highest priorities, respectively.</p>
<h2>Improving access</h2>
<p>This illustrates why provinces with few existing stores should open more once cannabis supplies allow. Ontario especially should let producers open their on-site shops. </p>
<p>Ontario’s plans for <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-cannabis-same-day-delivery-1.4989801">same-day delivery of online orders</a> would similarly boost convenience. California recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-pot-deliveries-okd-into-calif-communities-that-ban-sales-2019-1">legalized private-sector delivery</a> services. Those have flourished by bringing cannabis into cities that opted out of allowing stores. (Municipalities in Ontario and B.C. that opted out might want to ponder that trend.)</p>
<p>Naturally, other factors contributed to inter-provincial differences. Consider Prince Edward Island. It had slightly fewer stores than New Brunswick; one per 51,000 people. But it had higher per capita sales of $13.83. That success was reportedly due to it avoiding the product shortages plaguing other provinces.</p>
<p>Store revenues also varied by province. P.E.I.’s averaged $1.1 million each in the fourth quarter, whereas New Brunswick’s only hit $410,000. By contrast, Québec’s scarce outlets averaged $2.7 million apiece.</p>
<p>Given its similar dearth of stores, Ontario’s first 25 outlets could see similar results to Québec’s. The <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-cannabis-retail-licence-yorkville-1.5007616">shop coming to ritzy Yorkville</a> should do even better. High-end shopping, anyone?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Government data outline what’s popular with Canadian cannabis shoppers. Among other things, they prefer smoke-able cannabis, high-quality products and in-store shopping.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1099912019-01-24T22:18:39Z2019-01-24T22:18:39ZWhere’s the weed? Clues to Canada’s cannabis shortages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255245/original/file-20190123-135145-kprlmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A depiction of a cannabis bud drops from the ceiling at Leafly's countdown party in Toronto as midnight passes and marks the first day of the legalization of cannabis across Canada. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Young/The Canadian Press)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Where’s the weed!? </p>
<p>That’s been a common Canadian <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-cannabis-shortage-years-1.4988195">refrain lately</a>. Shortages <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/cannabis-retailers-still-short-of-supply-on-second-day-of-legal-pot-1.4139990">appeared almost immediately</a> after recreational cannabis sales began last October.</p>
<p>Provincial distributors subsequently blamed producers and federal regulators. Lacking stock, Québec <a href="https://www.sqdc.ca/en-CA/about-the-sqdc/shopping-at-the-sqdc/regular-opening-hours">closed stores three days a week</a>. <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/aglc-hits-pause-on-retail-cannabis-licences-as-nation-sees-pot-shortage">Alberta froze retailer licensing</a> and <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/armstrong-ontarios-following-a-pot-luck-path-to-inefficient-cannabis-selling">Ontario limited store licences to 25</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/medical-patients-should-come-first-if-there-is-a-marijuana-shortage-says-patient-advocate">Medical cannabis shortfall concerns</a> appeared even earlier. Some users worried producers were prioritizing more lucrative recreational products or overseas markets.</p>
<p>In response, federal regulators pointed to increasing <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/medical-pot-shortages-1.4887318">industry inventories</a> and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/industry-licensees-applicants/licensed-cultivators-processors-sellers.html">producer licences</a>. Producers blamed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46200873">new-industry growing pains</a> and regulatory red tape. Meanwhile, some <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/cannabis-experts-from-legal-u-s-states-surprised-dismayed-by-alberta-store-freeze">analysts criticized</a> provincial licensing limits as over-reactions.</p>
<p>How can Canada seemingly have large cannabis supplies and yet widespread shortages? <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data/supply-demand.html">Recently released</a> Health Canada <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/licensed-producers/market-data.html">cannabis inventory and sales data</a> provide some clues.</p>
<h2>Growing supplies</h2>
<p>Cannabis producers greatly expanded their stockpiles prior to legalization last year. Between January and September, month-end inventories of “dry” cannabis (flowers and leaves) more than doubled from 40 to 102 tonnes. </p>
<p>Similarly, cannabis-infused oil supplies more than tripled, from 14 to 48 kilolitres. Inventory growth slowed in October as recreational sales began.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254766/original/file-20190121-100270-jk4g01.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Producers’ month-end inventories of oil and dry cannabis. Prepared by author from Health Canada data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Armstrong</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So as officials have noted, there was lots of cannabis overall. That doesn’t mean there weren’t shortages.</p>
<h2>Medical decline and rebound</h2>
<p>Consider medical cannabis. Between April 2017 and September 2018, oil sales per registered client increased 18 per cent. Meanwhile, dry sales plunged 53 per cent, from 11.0 grams per client to just 5.1. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254769/original/file-20190121-100264-5j481x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Medical quantities sold relative to total registered clients. October and November 2018 use September’s client count. Prepared by author from Health Canada data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Armstrong</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dry sales’ steep decline might reflect a gradual medical shift to oils. But shortages also might have contributed.</p>
<p>The post-legalization sales increases support that theory. November’s oil sales were 18 per cent above September’s. But dry sales soared 103 per cent. Medical clients seemingly refilled their dry supplies after legalization made prescription transfers easier.</p>
<p>Differences between oil and dry cannabis also appear in the recreational cannabis data.</p>
<h2>Oil flows, dry cannabis struggles</h2>
<p>For cannabis oil, recreational sales hit 1.9 kilolitres in November, legalization’s first full month. But comparison to October’s stronger numbers suggests retailers lost sales of roughly 1.8 kilolitres due to shortages. That implies potential recreational demand was around 3.8 kilolitres monthly. Meanwhile, medical sales hit 5.9 kilolitres.</p>
<p>Distributor inventories ended November in good shape. They more than doubled to 7.6 kilolitres. That’s enough to satisfy more than two months of recreational demand. </p>
<p>Similarly, producers ended with 26.3 kilolitres of finished (ready-to-ship) oil. That’s nearly three months of combined recreational and medical demand. Plus, their production and outbound shipping rates both exceeded total end-user demand. That suggests shortages would ease over time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254651/original/file-20190120-100279-1lnc6wv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rectangles show month-end inventories of unfinished (dashed lines) and finished (solid lines) products. Arrows show the month’s flows of products from producers toward consumers. Green indicates dry cannabis, orange indicates oils. Numbers indicate tonnes of dry cannabis and kilolitres of oil. Estimated by author from Health Canada data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Armstrong</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By comparison, dry cannabis struggled in November. Sales were 5.1 tonnes, but lost sales were perhaps about 8.3 tonnes. That put monthly recreational demand around 13.4 tonnes. Medical sales hit 3.7 tonnes.</p>
<p>Distributors’ inventory climbed significantly to 10.5 tonnes. But that’s insufficient for even one month’s demand.</p>
<p>Producer’s finished goods inventory of 15.1 tonnes likewise represented less than a month of combined recreational-medical needs. Production and shipments also trailed demand. That implies shortages would continue worsening.</p>
<h2>Explanations?</h2>
<p>Several explanations are possible for dry cannabis shortfalls existing despite large total inventories.</p>
<p>One is that 86 per cent of producers’ dry inventory was unfinished and not yet available for sale. Much of that was recent crops being <a href="https://lift.co/magazine/tag/seed-to-sale">dried and cured</a>. But the large contrast with finished goods suggests possible processing and packaging bottlenecks too.</p>
<p>Another reason is these data add-up inventories across all producers. By contrast, each recreational customer is served by just one provincial distributor.</p>
<p>Suppose one source has a surplus while another has a shortage. Their total inventory could look healthy. But half their users would see empty shelves.</p>
<p>As well, supply and demand are much harder to balance for individual products than for overall product categories. That’s a common retail problem.</p>
<p>For example, imagine visiting a clothing store. Request “a shirt”, and sales staff could show you hundreds. But specify “a long-sleeved, medium-tall, all-cotton, emerald-green shirt” and they might have none to offer, despite huge inventory overall.</p>
<p>Cannabis buyers and sellers likely experienced such mismatches. Medical clients treating conditions <a href="https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm611046.htm">like epilepsy</a> would be especially at risk. They’d want specific product formulations, not random substitutes.</p>
<p>One factor that doesn’t look important is cannabis exports. In 2018, those averaged only 2.5 per cent of monthly production. That’s probably too small to significantly affect domestic availability.</p>
<p>Another non-issue was cannabis growing itself. Producers’ unfinished dry stockpiles remained almost unchanged during November. That suggests crop harvesting rates kept up with processing.</p>
<h2>Bigger market, bigger challenges</h2>
<p>The industry faces larger challenges longer term. Estimates of Canada’s total demand <a href="https://www.cdhowe.org/sites/default/files/attachments/research_papers/mixed/Final%20Final%20Commentary_523.pdf">vary widely</a>. But <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/demand-for-pot-will-be-much-higher-than-anyone-anticipated-after-legalization-says-report-commissioned-for-health-canada">Health Canada’s latest assessment</a>, for dry cannabis and oil equivalents combined works out to about 77 tonnes monthly.</p>
<p>So the legal cannabis industry must not only provide better availability of the specific products users want. To eventually serve every recreational and medical user, it also needs to massively grow its capacity. And it must do that <a href="https://theconversation.com/legal-cannabis-vs-black-market-can-it-compete-104915">while competing with black markets</a> despite federal restrictions on <a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-weed-branding-is-essential-for-cannabis-companies-87400">branding and promotion</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Government data suggest medical cannabis availability improved after legalization in Canada. But producers have struggled to meet demand for recreational cannabis other than oils.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1065092018-11-14T11:43:46Z2018-11-14T11:43:46ZCan artisanal weed compete with ‘Big Marijuana’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245422/original/file-20181113-194494-1b1h3a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Perhaps one day Humboldt pot will be as famous as Bordeaux wine.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Richard Vogel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve heard of Big Pharma and Big Tobacco. How about <a href="https://learnaboutsam.org/the-issues/big-tobacco-2-0-big-marijuana/">Big Marijuana</a>? </p>
<p>The drug’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-expands-into-3-more-states-but-nationwide-legalization-still-unlikely-106512">growing legalization</a> is raising concerns among small-scale marijuana farmers and retailers that the corporatization of weed may be right around the corner. </p>
<p>For example, earlier this year NASDAQ <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/04/now-you-can-buy-this-hot-marijuana-stock-on-the-na.aspx">became the first</a> major U.S. stock exchange to list shares of a marijuana production company. And in August, Corona-maker Constellation Brands shocked Wall Street by making a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/08/22/could-smaller-pot-companies-be-targets-after-the-constellation-canopy-deal/#21c022065dd8">US$3.8 billion investment</a> in a Canadian marijuana producer, sparking a bull market in marijuana stocks industry-wide. Even Coca-Cola is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-17/coca-cola-eyes-cannabis-market-in-push-beyond-sluggish-sodas">exploring opportunities</a> to get involved.</p>
<p>Corporate and Wall Street interest in weed is only going to increase now that <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/weed-wins-on-election-day-so-what-comes-next/?mbid=social_twitter">three more states</a> have legalized recreational or medicinal marijuana use – bringing the total to 33 – while Canada <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/canada/marijuana-pot-cannabis-legalization.html">recently became</a> the second country to allow recreational uses of the drug.</p>
<p>I have studied the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2766523">marijuana agriculture industry</a> for the past several years, tracing its evolution from black market drug to legal intoxicant. It’s a story I tell in <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/craft-weed">my book</a>, “Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry.”</p>
<p>With all this money pouring in, it’s fair to wonder how legalization will change the marijuana industry itself – and whether it can stay true to its hippie roots. </p>
<h2>Small origins</h2>
<p>One of the unintended consequences of the federal prohibition on marijuana in the United States is that legal pot-related businesses have remained rather small. </p>
<p>The American marijuana farming scene, for example, has been dominated by small outdoor farmers and modest indoor warehouse growers. The alternative - large, market-share-dominating companies - would attract the attention of federal authorities. </p>
<p>State governments have recognized a public benefit to keeping farms small and local as well. In California, for example, most <a href="https://static.cdfa.ca.gov/MCCP/document/MCCP%20FAQ.pdf">marijuana farming licenses</a> are granted to farms limited to no more than one acre of marijuana.</p>
<p>The federal prohibition also prevents farmers, distributors and retailers from engaging in interstate commerce, meaning that states that legalize marijuana use must create their own local markets for homegrown small businesses to operate in. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245480/original/file-20181114-194488-1smx38a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">California cannabis farms like Steve Fagan’s can not be larger than an acre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Richard Vogel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moneyed interests</h2>
<p>But as the legal marijuana industry booms, well-heeled companies and investors are trying to corner the market. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://arcviewgroup.com/research/free-executive-summary/">one estimate</a>, consumer spending on legal marijuana products in the U.S. reached $8.5 billion in 2017, up 31 percent from the previous year. Spending is projected to reach $23.4 billion by 2022. </p>
<p>For comparison, beer sales are <a href="https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/national-beer-sales-production-data/">actually declining</a>. Although total sales were a robust $111 billion in 2017, that was down 1 percent from the previous year. </p>
<p>Such rapid growth in the marijuana market may not be surprising, given that two-thirds of the U.S. population can now use marijuana medicinally or recreationally up from none just over two decades ago, based on my own analysis. </p>
<p>As a result, retail stores are becoming bigger and bolder, with chains competing to establish themselves as the Starbucks of the marijuana industry. </p>
<p>One of these is Seattle-based Diego Pellicer, <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/10/willie-nelson-crusade-stop-big-pot.html?gtm=bottom&gtm=top">one of the first</a> marijuana companies to market itself as a premium brand retail chain. For now, the company’s model rests on acquiring real estate and securing deals with marijuana retailers willing to operate their business under the Diego Pellicer name. That way, if the federal prohibition is ever lifted, Diego Pellicer will be in prime position to dominate the retail market.</p>
<p>The immense growth potential is also attracting private equity and other investors, some of whom are partnering with <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/10/news/celebrity-marijuana-brands/index.html">celebrities</a> whose names are linked to pot smoking. In 2016, for example, a private equity firm <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/5/10921432/marley-natural-marijuana-launch-price">partnered with the Bob Marley estate</a> to launch the Marley Natural line of marijuana products. </p>
<p>Patents are seen as another way a few giant companies may come to capture the pot industry. Increasingly well-funded <a href="https://phylos.bio/our-company/">laboratories</a> are developing new <a href="https://www.leafly.com/start-exploring">strains of marijuana</a> at a rapid pace, with varying degrees of strength and hardiness as well as unique psychoactive and flavor profiles.</p>
<p>As the U.S. Patent and Trade Office <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2017/07/24/us-patent-office-issuing-cannabis-patents-to-a-growing-market/#218c9f3468d4">begins</a> to <a href="https://www.law.com/thelegalintelligencer/2018/04/02/ip-protection-and-the-cannabis-industry-strategies-and-trends/?slreturn=20180727134213">issue patents</a>, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/the-great-pot-monopoly-mystery">there are reports</a> of companies attempting to gobble them up. </p>
<p>Finally, many in the agricultural sector of the marijuana industry are <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-plan-to-save-californias-legendary-weed-from-big-cannabis/">predicting and bracing for</a> an agribusiness takeover – though this has yet to happen. </p>
<h2>How craft weed can thrive</h2>
<p>Are marijuana veterans right to be concerned that their industry is <a href="https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7650062-181/california-releases-cannabis-regulations-with">moving too rapidly</a> from the black market to the stock market?</p>
<p>Yes and no. <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2815070">My own research</a> suggests that a local, sustainable and artisanal model of marijuana production can co-exist with Big Marijuana – much as <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-imagine-a-world-without-budweiser-we-can-56791">craft beer</a> has thrived in recent years alongside the traditional macro breweries. </p>
<p>One reason is that whereas the illicit drug trade forced consumers to buy ambiguously sourced marijuana from street dealers, the legal market allows consumers to buy a wide variety of marijuana products from legitimate retail businesses. And <a href="https://arcviewgroup.com/product/edibles/">more and more</a> consumers are turning to edibles and extracts produced by highly specialized manufacturers.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.leafly.com/explore/sort-alpha">staggering number</a> of marijuana strains being developed is creating a connoisseur culture that favors small-scale, artisanal farms that can nimbly adapt to shifts in market demand. Because such farms can market themselves as small, sustainable and local, they can better reflect 21st-century food movement ideals. </p>
<p>Besides efforts at the state level to limit the size of farms, another regulatory approach is the use of appellations to encourage an artisanal pot culture. <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-wine-to-weed-keeping-the-marijuana-farm-small-and-local-63803">I have argued</a> that the marijuana industry is well-suited to adopt an appellation system, like you find with wine and cheeses. </p>
<p>Just like a Bordeaux wine comes exclusively from that region of France or Parmigiano-Reggiano is named after the areas of Italy where it originates, Humboldt marijuana may become a prestigious and legally protected designation of origin for marijuana products grown or produced in Humboldt County, California.</p>
<p>It is probably inevitable that Big Marijuana will take hold in some form, but that doesn’t mean the market can’t support the small businesses that have enabled marijuana to become a uniquely local and artisanal industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Stoa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>About two-thirds of Americans now live in states where marijuana is legal for medicinal or recreational purposes, leading some to worry corporate and Wall Street interests will take over the industry.Ryan Stoa, Associate Professor of Law, Concordia University School of LawLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1034192018-10-15T21:32:21Z2018-10-15T21:32:21ZAs cannabis is legalized, let’s remember amnesty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240460/original/file-20181012-109216-vqjfaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new cannabis legislation in Canada does not give enough thought to those who were overly punished for cannabis-related activities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jakob Owens/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Weed, spliff, cannabis, joint, blunt, Mary Jane, ganja, reefer, marijuana, pot: no matter what you call it, it is almost legal in Canada. Many will benefit from the new right to grow, sell or smoke legally and freely.</p>
<p>Before we celebrate, let’s take a moment to remember the <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/d35eyq/black-and-indigenous-people-are-overrepresented-in-canadas-weed-arrests">Black and Indigenous peoples who have been overrepresented in Canada’s cannabis-related arrests, despite similar rates of cannabis use across racial groups</a>. According to a <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/07/06/toronto-marijuana-arrests-reveal-startling-racial-divide.html">2017 <em>Toronto Star</em> report:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Black people with no history of criminal convictions have been three times more likely to be arrested by Toronto police for possession of small amounts of marijuana than white people with similar backgrounds…” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/d35eyq/black-and-indigenous-people-are-overrepresented-in-canadas-weed-arrests"><em>Vice</em> report filed by Rachel Browne</a> looked at statistics from 2015-17 and found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Indigenous people in Regina were nearly nine times more likely to get arrested for cannabis possession than white people during that time period.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/">Cannabis Act</a> (Bill C–45), informed by <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/marijuana-cannabis/task-force-marijuana-legalization-regulation/framework-legalization-regulation-cannabis-in-canada.html">the recommendations of the Task Force on Cannabis</a>, creates a <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-24.5/">legal framework</a> for “controlling the production, distribution, sale and possession of cannabis in Canada.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240681/original/file-20181015-165888-1efbvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although use of cannabis is spread evenly among racial identities, Black and Indigenous people are more likely than white folks to be arrested for using it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thought Catalog/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The act, however, <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/news/marijuana-legalization-amnesty/">does not discuss cannabis amnesty</a>. <a href="https://www.cannabisamnesty.ca/cannabis_legalization_and_the_need_for_amnesty">Cannabis amnesty</a> is the clearing or turning over of previous convictions of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cannabis/article-canada-needs-to-clear-the-air-and-wipe-away-criminal-records-for/">cannabis “crimes” that occurred before the legislation took effect</a>. </p>
<p>Cannabis has a <a href="http://dankr.ca/lifestyle/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition">long history of being used to criminalize African, Indigenous and racialized peoples</a> in Canada and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/marijuana-prohibition-racist_n_4590190">globally</a>. The lack of redress in Canada’s Bill C-45 for those convicted of marijuana charges indicates <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/gymnym/why-legalization-wont-change-racial-disparities-in-cannabis-arrests">Canada’s continuation of these racist policies and processes</a>. </p>
<p>While there are some critical discussions among African or Black scholars, lawyers and activists, <a href="http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2018/where-are-black-canadians-in-the-cannabis-debate/">the history of who has been criminalized has largely been ignored or silenced in the current legalization debates</a>.</p>
<h2>A continuum of colonial tragedies</h2>
<p>Despite the absence of race in the legal debates, some media and academics have linked racism and the decriminalization of cannabis in Canada.</p>
<p>Robyn Maynard’s book <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives"><em>Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to Present</em></a> eloquently discusses the historical and current realities of anti-Black racism (and Black resistance) through state-sanctioned violence. Maynard connects <a href="https://www.theleafnews.com/news/making-amends-468883883.html">drug incarcerations with child incarcerations (in the form of Children Aids Society apprehensions) and other racist systemic practices that continue to harm mostly African and Indigenous families</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/07/06/toronto-marijuana-arrests-reveal-startling-racial-divide.html"><em>Toronto Star</em> and <em>Vice</em> reports</a>, articles in the <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/black-communities-seek-cannabis-amnesty-as-pot-legalization-nears"><em>National Post</em></a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/07/canada-marijuana-cannabis-legalization-amnesty-drug-laws"><em>Guardian</em> </a> question why the new legislation does not address past and more recent marijuana convictions and criminalization. </p>
<p>Other news stories that link racism to the criminalization of cannabis have come out of the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/legalize-pot-racism-black-1.4257411"><em>CBC</em></a>, <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/a-bad-trip-legalizing-pot-is-about-race/"><em>Macleans</em></a> and <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/news/cannabis-indigenous-communities/"><em>Now</em></a>. But much more research and discussion about the impacts of both the criminalization and the decriminalization of cannabis on Black and Indigenous communities is needed. </p>
<p>There has been a <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives">deliberate campaign to criminalize racialized groups in Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/">United States</a>, and <a href="http://dankr.ca/lifestyle/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition">the criminalization of cannabis use has been part of this</a>. </p>
<p>Many members of the Black and Indigenous communities feel outrage, anger and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pot-legalization-bob-marley-grandaughter-donisha-prendergast-1.4859536">distress</a> at the historically racist legislation. They now feel <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/gymnym/why-legalization-wont-change-racial-disparities-in-cannabis-arrests">excluded from its possible resolution</a>. </p>
<h2>How long shall they kill our profits?</h2>
<p>Despite a few good articles, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/irisdorbian/2018/07/17/as-legalization-looms-canadas-pot-industry-reels-in-the-cash/">news media</a> has mostly focused on the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4460887/canada-weed-stocks-skyrocketing-investing/">cannabis market</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240687/original/file-20181015-165921-pyn9ye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cannabis is now a gentrified business in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cannabis is a plant that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/connecting-with-your-roots-for-better-and-for-worse-1.4576663/ganja-is-not-a-drug-bob-marley-s-granddaughter-on-rasta-spirituality-1.4576668">has been used globally</a> for <a href="https://www.livescience.com/48337-marijuana-history-how-cannabis-travelled-world.html">thousands of years for spiritual, recreational and medicinal purposes</a>. In many communities, <a href="http://africanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-44">cannabis is a cultural marker</a>. For example, <a href="https://www.cannaconnection.com/blog/9082-background-rastafari-and-use-of-marijuana">Rastafarian communities use cannabis in spiritual ceremonies</a>. </p>
<p>The Cannabis Act does not specifically discuss the market possibilities of this <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.4403187/julian-fantino-who-once-compared-weed-to-murder-defends-opening-medical-marijuana-business-1.4403194">gentrified industry</a>, but the links between <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/news/10-pot-entrepreneurs-disrupting-marijuana-white-male-monopoly/">white male elites</a> and the business of cannabis can already be seen. <em>Now</em> reports that while there are exceptions, “almost all of the country’s 80-plus licensed producers (LPs) are run by white men” and only “<a href="https://nowtoronto.com/news/10-pot-entrepreneurs-disrupting-marijuana-white-male-monopoly/">five per cent of board members of publicly traded weed companies in Canada are female</a>.” </p>
<p>By focusing <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/02/news/canada-cannabis/index.html">mainly on the money to be made from the “new legitimized” growers and sellers</a>, these stories of potential success ignore the permeating racist ideology, structures and practices that were created to systematically steal resources (including people) from Indigenous communities globally. In the conversations about money, there are few discussions about reparations for past violence and diminished opportunities.</p>
<p>Evidence from the U.S. shows that in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/06/29/483954157/as-adults-legally-smoke-pot-in-colorado-more-minority-kids-arrested-for-it">states where cannabis is legal, racialized folks continue to be arrested</a> at higher rates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/boehner-marijuana-blacks-prison.html">than whites for weed possession</a>. </p>
<p>Therefore, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/29/16936908/marijuana-legalization-racial-disparities-arrests">racialized people are still criminalized for cannabis, punished and isolated from their families and communities</a>, leaving opportunities for big cannabis business in the hands of white elites. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240688/original/file-20181015-165924-1lj0nu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Business opportunities for cannabis are not equal because of historical laws and policing which disproportionately targeted Black and Indigenous peoples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why Canada banned pot</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/01/why_canada_banned_pot_science_had_nothing_to_do_with_it.html">ban on drugs, including cannabis, in the early 20th century has links to racism and curtailed immigration</a>. For example, <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9359/1/9780774829199.pdf">the 1908 Opium Act</a> and the <a href="https://kpulawandsociety.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/applying-critical-race-theory-to-the-chinese-immigration-act-of-1923/">1923 Chinese Exclusion Act</a> are both connected to anti-Asian sentiments, under the guise that <a href="http://www.roadtojustice.ca/laws/chinese-exclusion-act">opium would be brought by Chinese immigrants to “Canadian (white) youth.”</a></p>
<p>Emily Murphy’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3kvgg8/the-mother-of-canadas-marijuana-laws-is-a-feminist-hero-and-a-racist-monster">1922 book, <em>The Black Candle</em></a> helped to connect the fear of “the other” to cannabis. Soon after her book was published, cannabis was added to the restricted list of drugs in the 1923 Opium and Narcotic Drug Act. That act and <a href="https://420intel.ca/articles/2018/04/26/exclusive-timeline-cannabis-legalization-canada">the later Narcotics Control Act of 1961 led to marijuana convictions and incarcerations</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pot-smoking-became-illegal-in-canada-92499">How pot-smoking became illegal in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Canadian state was <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/chapter-7/canadian-genocide-search-name">built on Indigenous genocide and apartheid</a>, sanctioned by the <a href="https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_indian_act/">ruthless Indian Act</a> and the viciousness of the “enslavement of African peoples” whereby enslavement <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-enslavement">“was a legal instrument that helped fuel colonial economic enterprise.”</a> This history shaped the environment where Black and Indigenous peoples were deemed to be criminalized. </p>
<h2>Marijuana legalized today: Racism here to stay?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240685/original/file-20181015-165924-1m5u20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reefer Madness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, in the U.S., Mexican and Black people were blamed for cannabis use. These racist ideas were popularized by a 1936 propaganda film <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2"><em>Reefer Madness</em>, which spread racialized notions of the</a> harm Black and Mexican users had on “good (white) folks.” The passage of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2">Boggs Act in the U.S. in 1952 set mandatory sentences for marijuana convictions</a>.</p>
<p>For the cannabis movement to be truly effective, it must address amnesty, <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-lives-of-white-killers-more-important-than-everyday-black-folk-96064">anti-Black racism and other intersectional violence inherent in our justice system</a>. But history has taught us that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2476792">colonial violence is insidious and continuous</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/gymnym/why-legalization-wont-change-racial-disparities-in-cannabis-arrests">lack of accessible race-based data on the criminalization of marijuana in Canada</a> supports the theory that discussions of racial surveillance, profiling, carding and arrests that target Black and Indigenous communities have been silenced. </p>
<p>The redress of marijuana-related convictions on African/Black and Indigenous peoples are not emphasized in Bill C-45. <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-24.5/page-2.html%23h-6">Instead, the Cannabis Act expansively outlines the behaviour that is prohibited and punishable under the new legislation</a>. </p>
<p>This emphasis ensures that the impact of cannabis amnesty will be limited and that Black, racialized and Indigenous communities will continue to face criminalization in Canada and globally, proving that old colonial rules, new elites and continuing violence still sanction the selling and use of cannabis.</p>
<p>We continue, however hopeless it sometimes feels, with the weight of thousands of ancestors behind us, resisting, persisting and demanding — for real freedom. This struggle includes the fight for amnesty for “crimes” from which others can now freely economically and socially benefit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roberta K. Timothy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Now that cannabis is almost legal in Canada, many are celebrating. Before we forget, we should remember those that have been arrested for previous crimes and push for amnesty.Roberta K. Timothy, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream. Social and Behavioural Health Science, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033732018-09-25T21:05:33Z2018-09-25T21:05:33ZAre we really ready for privatized pot sales?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237774/original/file-20180924-85755-4x4lhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In less than a month, marijuana can be legally purchased from private retailers in Ontario and some other places across Canada. Are we ready for it?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford plans to <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/cannabis/2018/07/26/doug-ford-set-to-privatize-legal-cannabis-sales-reports-say.html">privatize the retail sales of marijuana</a> once it becomes legal next month, in contrast to the policy of the previous provincial government. </p>
<p>Before the end of this year, cannabis sales become legal across Canada with a variety of distribution approaches under consideration. Five other provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland — <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/cannabis/2018/08/13/ontario-will-rely-on-private-sector-to-sell-recreational-cannabis.html">plan to allow private stores to sell recreational marijuana while others, like Quebec and Nova Scotia, have opted for government-operated retailing.</a></p>
<p>Sales in Ontario will begin online this fall before expanding to retail locations at a later date. </p>
<p>Ford’s reasoning appears to be ideological: There is too much government, and whenever it’s feasible and safe for the private sector to conduct an activity, it’s better. </p>
<p>But to assess the wisdom of privatizing marijuana sales in Ontario and in Canada at large, it’s useful to consider a number of key factors that affect the market for marijuana as we move toward legalization.</p>
<h2>One in five Canadians indulges</h2>
<p>Almost 20 per cent of the Canadian population consumed marijuana last year, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/587689/marijuana-consumption-canada/">according to recent surveys</a>. This has two implications. </p>
<p>First, because recreational marijuana is not legal, a substantial fraction of the Canadian population is engaging in illegal activity that can lead to criminal charges. This will change when the law comes into force.</p>
<p>Second, because marijuana cannot be obtained through legal channels, a massive black market exists for weed. The primary beneficiaries of this black market are individuals and organizations that operate outside the law. </p>
<p>Legalization will decriminalize a significant number of Canadians, and some argue it will also pull the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4094681/marijuana-weed-legalization-black-market/">rug out from under the feet of criminals</a> who currently run the trade in Canada. </p>
<p>In addition, the legalization of marijuana will lead to a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/14/cannabis-jobs-canada-indeed_a_23502123/">new industry that will create thousands of new jobs</a> and pay taxes, something criminals typically do not do. Whether one agrees with this argument or not, it’s important to keep this in mind when we assess the proposed privatization of marijuana sales.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237776/original/file-20180924-85752-1enllk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cannabis plants intended for the medical marijuana market are shown at OrganiGram in Moncton, N.B., in 2016. Proponents of legalization say it will create new industries and jobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ron Ward</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond the ideological argument for privatization, five key factors need to be considered to assess the proposed privatization of sales. </p>
<p>These factors are availability, pricing, the government/health community’s perspective on recreational marijuana use, education and quality control.</p>
<h2>Availability</h2>
<p>There is little doubt that the privatization of marijuana retailing will lead to increased availability compared to government-based distribution. Privatization will mean an increased number of outlets, with likely longer daily operating hours as well as openings on statutory holidays.</p>
<p>When legal marijuana is easier to access, the likelihood that people choose it over black market weed is higher. </p>
<p>However, the increased availability of a product typically leads to higher consumption. It is unclear whether that’s the government’s goal; nevertheless, higher availability generally has this effect.</p>
<h2>Pricing</h2>
<p>The most important driver of black market sales for a particular product is the price gap between legal (or authorized) products and those that are available on the black market. When the gap is large, black markets generally flourish. </p>
<p>The Ontario government previously announced that it plans to price marijuana at $10 a gram before tax (or $11.30 a gram including tax). However, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180706/dq180706c-eng.htm">a recent crowd-sourced survey that Stats Canada completed in July 2018</a> reports price swings for black market marijuana in Canada that range from $5.82 a gram in Quebec to $11.14 in the Territories. </p>
<p>In the survey, the reported price in Ontario was $7.38 per gram. That’s an approximate 34-per-cent gap compared to the planned legal price in the province. For a regular marijuana user, this gap can represent annual savings of hundreds of dollars, and may not eliminate the incentive to buy on the black market.</p>
<h2>The government perspective</h2>
<p>Until now, most public discourse regarding marijuana relates to decriminalizing the product for many users and the need to eliminate the black market. Unfortunately, insufficient discussion has been directed to determining whether recreational marijuana is a social bad or a social good.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-if-cannabis-is-legal-please-dont-toke-and-drive-97992">Even if cannabis is legal, please don't toke and drive</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Historically, the government has taken clear positions through taxation on the impact of different products. Tobacco is seen as a social bad. That’s why cigarette taxes are so high and why the government has sponsored anti-smoking campaigns for decades.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237763/original/file-20180924-85782-1thplky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Ottawa bartender makes a cocktail in this 2015 photo. Booze isn’t taxed as highly as tobacco in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alcohol has a more muddled reputation. That’s because consuming large amounts of alcohol has terrible effects on health yet consuming small amounts from time to time does not appear to have a negative impact. So the level of taxation on alcohol, while high, is significantly lower than the level of tobacco. </p>
<p>One way we can infer the government’s position regarding recreational marijuana use is to compare the level of taxation across categories with the fraction of the expected retail price that is tax. The graphs below provide that information:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237778/original/file-20180924-85785-wsuru1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237779/original/file-20180924-85776-l31r9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s apparent that the level of taxation on recreational cannabis is lower than other regulated products. Independent of how the tax is split between the province and the federal government (75/25 is the plan), the government is not discouraging consumption as it does with tobacco. In fact, these charts suggest that maybe the opposite is taking place.</p>
<h2>Education</h2>
<p>Recent news coverage has focused on the business and retail aspects of legalization and the issue of education almost seems like an afterthought. With a product like cannabis that has significant physical and psychological effects, the public needs to be better educated about its consumption. </p>
<p>There are lots of questions surrounding marijuana yet the reality for most Canadians is: It is difficult to obtain information on the pros and cons of a product that is not legal. </p>
<p>It seems that government-controlled stores may be better than the private sector at distributing educational materials and/or establishing programs to help Canadians understand the advantages and disadvantages of recreational marijuana use.</p>
<h2>Quality control</h2>
<p>With multiple suppliers already growing marijuana or set to enter the market, the supply is highly fragmented, and there could be significant quality differences across manufacturers. </p>
<p>As a result, quality control is an important issue. After all, marijuana is something people ingest. Pharmaceutical products, while distributed privately, are tightly controlled and subject to significant quality control. </p>
<p>The marijuana industry should be subject to similar quality checks, manufacturer validation and manufacturer monitoring, which would be more efficient and effective through a tightly controlled distribution system.</p>
<p>As we contemplate the future of recreational marijuana distribution in Canada, there are still many questions for both the public and government to consider before Oct. 17.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Soberman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As marijuana legalization looms and we we contemplate the future of cannabis sales in Canada, there are still lots of questions for both the public and government to consider.David Soberman, Professor of Marketing, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1006502018-07-31T21:57:32Z2018-07-31T21:57:32ZMarijuana-friendly campuses? I don’t think so …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229527/original/file-20180726-106496-1m5htuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (JOHSC) of Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia unanimously voted on March 5, 2018 to ban all smoking of marijuana products on campus — for health and safety reasons.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Flickr/Chuck Grimmett)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the run-up to the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4285946/marijuana-legal-date-october-17-canada-trudeau-confirms/">legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada</a> on Oct. 17, 2018, many <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4047471/canadian-universities-legal-marijuana-campus/">universities and colleges are still in a wait-and-see position</a> concerning marijuana use on campus.</p>
<p>One university in British Columbia, however — Thompson Rivers University (TRU) — has taken a firm and proactive stance. </p>
<p>TRU’s 20-person Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (JOHSC), of which I am a member, unanimously voted on March 5, 2018, to ban all smoking of marijuana products on campus — for health and safety reasons.</p>
<p>Research shows that Canadian university students are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-cannabis-on-canadian-campuses-99674">big consumers of cannabis products</a>. Other university administrators across the country now face the tough questions of <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/education/marijuana-use-canadian-universities/">whether to allow pot to be consumed, or even sold in cannabis lounges</a>, on campus and how to weigh the existing evidence on marijuana’s effects.</p>
<h2>Up to 600 times more potent</h2>
<p>Pro-marijuana smokers on the TRU committee argued that marijuana smoke is no different than cigarette smoke and that smoking areas designated for cigarette smoke should also be used for marijuana. </p>
<p>This was also the position taken by a Thompson Rivers University safety and emergency management newsletter dated April 2016, which declared university grounds to be “…entirely smoke-free with the exception of nine designated smoking areas where smoking is allowed. The smoking policy bans the use of lit tobacco and/or medical marijuana cigarettes, cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes and any other similar device (outside of these areas).”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229525/original/file-20180726-106505-12rlia3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cheech and Chong perform at the Uptown Theater in Napa, CA as a part of the 4th annual BottleRock festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So why was the committee moved to suggest changing a long-standing smoking policy? The JOHSC was presented with the following information: First, marijuana smoked in the 1960s was only 1.5 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the psychoactive ingredient that gets you high — by weight. </p>
<p>Modern hybrid genetically modified and hydroponically grown marijuana from British Columbia — “B.C. Bud” — may contain up to 30 per cent THC by weight. This represents a 20-fold increase in “pot potency” since the 1960s. </p>
<p>Synthetic marijuana, called “Spice” or “Shatter,” is 30 times more potent than modern B.C. Bud. Thus, synthetic marijuana is 600 times stronger than the ditch weed smoked by comedy duo <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheech_%26_Chong">Cheech and Chong</a> in the 1970s. </p>
<h2>More carcinogens than tobacco smoke</h2>
<p>Why is potency important? Second-hand smoke is the reason. </p>
<p>Side-stream smokers (bystanders) can have <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-11/documents/guidelines_exp_assessment.pdf">up to 20 per cent of active ingredients in their lungs after standing by, or walking next to, smokers</a>. </p>
<p>Non-marijuana users will not have the metabolites in their systems to deal with this level of intoxication. That is, they will not have built up a tolerance. Also, naïve bystanders cannot tell the potency of the marijuana smoked just by smell alone. Most animal studies demonstrate the ease with which such <a href="http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/322/3/1067">second- hand marijuana smoke can negatively affect behaviour</a>.</p>
<p>Most people are aware of the hazards associated with second-hand tobacco smoke. However, very few know that <a href="https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Hancock-Drugs-and-Behavior-An-Introduction-to-Behavioral-Pharmacology-Books-a-la-Carte-8th-Edition/PGM328432.html">marijuana smoke has 300 to 500 per cent more carcinogens than tobacco smoke</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4827335/">marijuana has been linked to addiction, drops in grades, slips and falls and car accidents</a>.</p>
<p>The JOHSC at Thompson Rivers University is considering individual ingestion of medical marijuana — via brownies, gummy bears or pills — on campus because the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4827335">consumption of such medicinal products doesn’t negatively impact others directly</a>. </p>
<h2>From cognitive impairment to psychosis</h2>
<p>The analogy that marijuana smoking is somehow similar to cigarette smoking is flawed. Marijuana is an intoxicant and therefore is analogous to drinking alcohol on campus. Smoking marijuana should therefore fall under the <a href="http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/lc/statreg/96267_01">Liquor Control and Licensing Act Section 40, 1996, chapter 267</a>. As TRU did not allow the open consumption of alcohol in public places on campus, neither would it allow marijuana to be smoked on campus.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229526/original/file-20180726-106502-ez9yw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brandon Bartelds smokes three joints at once while attending the 4-20 annual marijuana celebration, in Vancouver, B.C., on April 20, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the most damning evidence against marijuana use comes from a 2014 paper in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>. Although this paper <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4827335/">acknowledges that the evidence on marijuana’s impacts on the brain is complex and sometimes contradictory</a>, it reviews the available science to suggest that anyone even considering going to university would be unwise to smoke or ingest marijuana. </p>
<p>It shows that the short-term use of marijuana can make it difficult to learn and retain information. Marijuana has been linked to impaired motor co-ordination, altered judgment and risky sexual behaviour.</p>
<p>The paper profiles research showing a 25 per cent to 50 per cent risk of addiction among daily users, along with diminished life satisfaction and the potential for altered brain development and cognitive impairment (with lower IQ among those who were frequent users during adolescence). </p>
<p>Finally, marijuana has been linked with psychoses (including those associated with schizophrenia), especially among people with a genetic vulnerability in their family.</p>
<p><em>Chris Montoya gratefully acknowledges Kimberly Webster as co-author.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Member of the National Advisory Council (2016-18) and the Partnership for a Drug Free Canada.
</span></em></p>In advance of marijuana legalization in Canada, one university in British Columbia has taken a firm stance, banning all smoking of cannabis products on campus.Chris Montoya, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Thompson Rivers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1001022018-07-19T09:10:45Z2018-07-19T09:10:45ZPolicing of cannabis possession is largely accidental – and many officers don’t think it makes a difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228211/original/file-20180718-142428-1mcw8bj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The legal status of cannabis, and in particular its <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-oil-for-epilepsy-what-you-need-to-know-98499">medicinal benefits</a>, have been much debated in parliament and the press in recent months. During this time, we have been interviewing police officers in North Yorkshire, England, about the day-to-day policing of cannabis possession. We’ve also analysed anonymised data on 4,597 drug possession offences during 2013-16. This <a href="https://n8prp.org.uk/policing-cannabis-in-north-yorkshire/">research</a> raises important questions about how police forces in England and Wales should deal with this common but to some, trivial, offence.</p>
<p>Cannabis possession made up nearly three quarters of total drug offences in the North Yorkshire Police Force area during the period of our research. Yet, most of the 37 police constables and sergeants we interviewed across six police stations thought that their policing of cannabis possession had little or no long term impact on offenders’ drug use. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, they saw it as their duty to enforce the law – and, importantly, to be seen to enforce the law. Officers spoke about the need to fulfil public expectations that action would always be taken where a law is clearly being broken.</p>
<p>Some also thought that, on rare occasions, they could have an impact on some cannabis users, particularly young people, by preventing escalation to more serious drug use or offences; or preventing mental health problems. Officers were generally of the opinion that the long term harms and links to criminality they associated with cannabis use required them to take positive action when they came across the drug.</p>
<p>We also found that cannabis policing often appeared to be accidental. Rarely did officers proactively seek out cannabis possession offences. Instead, cannabis or evidence of cannabis use was most frequently found in the course of unrelated policing activity: for example, where officers stopped a car that had raised suspicions for other reasons, and a cloud of cannabis smoke had been released when the car window was wound down. </p>
<p>However, there was almost universal agreement among officers that, whatever the nature of the offence, formal action should always be taken. It was not seen as acceptable for officers to deal with the situation informally by simply dropping the drug down a drain. This is in marked contrast to previous <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/policing-cannabis-class-c-drug">UK research</a> which found that police officers frequently simply confiscated small amounts of cannabis and destroyed them in front of the user.</p>
<h2>Smells like weed</h2>
<p>The issue of smell was significant. In approximately half of all cases where an explanation for a search was given, smell was cited as the reason. In some situations, the proportion was considerably higher, as the diagram below shows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228275/original/file-20180718-142426-1j86ool.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The reasons officers give for searching people, in different contexts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Authors provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Guidance from the College of Policing <a href="https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/stop-and-search/legal/legal-basis/#section-23-of-the-misuse-of-drugs-act-1971">states</a> that the smell of cannabis on its own will not normally justify a search – but yet a third of our interviewed officers thought that it did. </p>
<p>Among some of the officers who were aware of the guidance, there was frustration with the idea that a strong and obvious smell of cannabis was not sufficient sole grounds for a search. It’s possible that changes in the nature of cannabis may be affecting this issue. Strong strains of herbal cannabis such as “skunk” which have a very pungent smell may be making public consumption of the drug much harder to hide; and therefore much harder for police officers to ignore.</p>
<p>Reflecting a long history of research on the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00671.x">targeting of stop and search</a>, our study found a strong relationship between deprivation and apprehension for cannabis possession. Even though very few offenders were encountered in their home wards, people both in and from more deprived wards were significantly more likely to be sanctioned for cannabis possession. </p>
<h2>Warnings first</h2>
<p>Many officers were keen not to criminalise cannabis users, particularly younger users, and therefore welcomed the fact that there were a number of steps before a repeat offender would be charged with a possession offence. Cannabis warnings, which involve confiscation of the drug and the filling out of a short form for adults, were largely popular with officers, some of whom saw scope for expanding their use to 16- and 17-year-olds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228213/original/file-20180718-142408-1bnps45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can you smell that?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/768128281?src=X8_JBPmN58ZK_P1ZtHw-kQ-1-9&size=medium_jpg">via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So it’s concerning that the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s new <a href="http://www.npcc.police.uk/Publication/Charging%20and%20Out%20of%20Court%20Disposals%20A%20National%20Strategy.pdf">strategy</a> on “out of court disposals” – alternatives to prosecution such as early interventions and cautions – could lead to more rapid criminalisation of cannabis offenders. </p>
<p>Until now, arrest should in most circumstances only occur at someone’s third offence: after the police have given a cannabis warning and a fine for previous offences. The new strategy could see cannabis warnings abandoned as an option for first cannabis possession offences. While forces around the country are interpreting this in various ways, the strategy suggests that a person caught in possession twice within a 12-month period would be given a conditional caution for their second offence, which would constitute a criminal record. This approach represents a swifter criminalisation for people accidentally found by the police to be in possession of small amounts of cannabis than was formerly the case. </p>
<p>Officers in our study were acutely aware that the long term consequences of having a criminal record might be disproportionate to the seriousness of these offences</p>
<p>At a time of <a href="https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN02619">decreasing recorded</a> drug offences nationally and in North Yorkshire, many officers felt that low police officer numbers had had a significant impact on their ability to proactively police cannabis possession. Given that the police are under increasing pressure and “managing demand” is <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-crime-drops-the-demands-on-the-police-dont-necessarily-fall-79288">much discussed</a>, it may be the time to look again at the policing of cannabis possession and whether this is something on which society wants its police forces to spend their valuable time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by North Yorkshire Police and the N8 Policing Research Partnership. I have also received funding from the National Institute of Health Research and the Department of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Page received funding from the N8 Policing Research Partnership and North Yorkshire Police for this project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Grace received funding from the N8 Policing Partnership and North Yorkshire Police for this project.</span></em></p>New research in North Yorkshire has found most police officers are keen not to criminalise cannabis users.Charlie Lloyd, Reader, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of YorkGeoff Page, Research Fellow, University of YorkSharon Grace, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.