Canadas next big move?

It
may be legalizing pot.

An employee makes cuttings from a mother plant to grow new medical marijuana
plants at the Tweed Inc. facility in Smith Falls, Ontario, Canada, on Nov. 11. (James
MacDonald/Bloomberg) (James MacDonald/Bloomberg)

By William Marsden-December 6
MONTREAL For police forces across Canada, the month of August is harvest time.
Cops slip on their coveralls, grab thick gardening gloves, shoulder machetes and begin
the annual ritual of chopping down marijuana plants hidden in cornfields, remote
mountain valleys and forest clearings.
If the grower is unlucky enough to be caught red-handed, he is cuffed and taken off to

court. Each police unit hits two or three of these hidden marijuana plantations, with
the confiscated pot taken to incinerators. The destruction of marijuana plants goes on
for about two weeksand then its back to normal police work.
Has this war on marijuana worked?
No, it hasnt, said Clive Weighill, chief of the Saskatoon police force, president of the
Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and a veteran of the August raids.
Times, however, are beginning to change in Canada.
The new Liberal government has promised to act quickly to legalize marijuana for
general use, which would make Canada the first G-20 country to end cannabis
prohibition on a national level.
Weighill is among those in favor.We are looking to the United States and the Colorado
experience, the Washington experience, and we hope to learn from that.
The opposition Conservative Party is staunchly opposed to legalization, claiming it will
make cannabis more easily available to youth. During the recent election campaign,
former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper said marijuana is infinitely
worse than tobacco and is something we do not want to encourage.
But faced with a large Liberal majority supported by the socialist New Democratic
Party, the Conservatives are powerless to stop legalization.
[Justin Trudeau leads a Liberal landslide in stunning election victory]
While the war on drugs in Canada has been nowhere near as dramatic as the ones
waged in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and the United States, it has nonetheless involved
violence and consumed considerable financial and human resources. In Montreal in
the late 1990s an outlaw biker gang war claimed 165 lives and ended only after a crime

reporter was shot seven times (he lived) and the Hells Angels threatened to assassinate
politicians. This was all over control of illegal drug sales, including marijuana.
The Liberals point out that more than 600,000 Canadians have criminal records for
simple possession of marijuana and the number continues to grow. They claim this is a
needless destruction of lives.
Each year the federal government spends as much as 500 million Canadian dollars
(roughly $375 million U.S.) on drug enforcement and prosecution, according to the
auditor general. About 50 million Canadian dollars goes to raiding marijuana
plantations. These figures do not include the money spent by provincial and municipal
authorities.
Yet a large number of people still use cannabis. For about a decade now, studies have
shown that past-year use among Canadians age 15 to 24 is the highest in the developed
world, with a recent study putting the rate at 24.6 percent. For adults 25 and over the
figure drops to 8 percent.
Our system is badly, badly flawed, said Eugene Oscapella, a law professor at the
University of Ottawa and longtime advocate for legalization. I keep asking myself a
question that I have been asking for 30 years. Could we have done a worse job if we
tried? Could we have found a way to create more dysfunction than we managed to
create?
The Canadian Center on Substance Abuse, a federally funded research organization,
has already cautioned against rushing into legalization.
After a fact-finding mission to Colorado and Washington, their experts answer was to
go slow.
We have to be clear on what our goal is, why are we doing this, said Rebecca
Jesseman, a specialist in performance mechanisms at the center. Are we looking to

promote public health? Are we looking to reduce youth access? Are we looking to cut
out the black market? What is the primary goal, because that will also help us shape
regulations, monitor our progress towards that goal and monitor our success.
She added that the center believes the dominant concern should be public health.
One of the more important lessons from Colorado was that it appears to have lacked a
sense of clear purpose and now finds itself unable to control a growing industry that is
clearly targeting young people, she said.
They are selling cannabis as candy, she said, referring to products laced with
THC (the main psychoactive element in cannabis) sold under brand names such as
Cherry Kush Lollipops, Ganja Joy, Keef-Kat and Bubble Gum.
She noted that in the absence of regulations, companies will push the envelope as far
as possible to make a profit.
You have established new corporate and consumer interests and its very hard then to
roll that back, she said.
The centers director of research, Amy Porath-Waller, said the health effects of
marijuana on adolescents have to be taken into account. Studies show that daily or
weekly cannabis use can slow brain development, impair cognitive functioning,
memory and decision-making.
She said, however, that after a month of non-use these impairments disappear.
Its not clear yet if these deficits last beyond a month, if they are permanent,
irreversible, she said. These are areas of active research.
Nor is it clear, she added, if occasional users are similarly affected.

Canada legalized medical marijuana about 15 years ago. Health Canada has so far
issued 26 production and distribution licenses to about 20 companies.
Recent mergers and acquisitions indicate an industry consolidation as companies
compete for a bigger share of a still-infant business, which Health Canada claims has a
potential of about 450,000 daily customers. At present prices this represents an
industry worth 1.2-billion Canadian dollars about $900 million U.S.
Canopy Growth Corp., which operates out of a former Hershey chocolate factory in the
small town of Smiths Falls, Ontario, recently purchased two other medical pot
producers and is eager to expand into the recreational market.
So too are investors. When Trudeaus Liberals won the October election,
Canopys stock price jumped to $3.65, from $1.50, before falling back to the $2.30$2.50 range, which puts the companys value at about 220 million Canadian dollars.
Now the largest medical marijuana company in Canada, Canopy, which has 7,300
registered medical customers, is very well positioned to jump into the recreational
market, company founder and CEO Bruce Linton said.

We already have been ramping up to be ready for that, he said.

He said the medical marijuana production model should be transferred to general use.
Production has to be completely natural, no chemicals. Packaging is restrained. Sales
could be made through the same type of government-owned outlets that sell alcohol in
most of Canada.

Law professor Oscapella, however, looks at the growth of companies like Canopy as a
potential nightmare. He fears a Big Pot developing with the kind of powerful vested

interests associated with global alcohol and tobacco companies.

My goal is to have what is inevitable in our society be as safe as possible and to try to
discourage harmful use, he said. That is very different from what big industry would
want with cannabis.

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