JungleStrikeGuy
Well-Known Member
From Kirk's facebook:
Busy day but I wanted to give a short recap of last Friday's Legalization Task Force meeting. The process is that the TF will make recommendations to Bill Blair who is acting as point person for three Ministers (Justice, Health and Public Safety). Mr. Blair will deliver the recommendations with his own comments and the government will do what it does.
The meeting covered five topic areas (set out in the discussion paper available to the public and which formed the basis for some 30,000 or more submissions already received by the TF). I believe that the TF is committed to doing its best to recommend a path forward that works for all Canadians. I also believe that there will be lots of things people don't agree with and lots of room for improvement. I also believe, as does the TF, that whatever legalization looks like on day one will not be the end of the matter and that changes over time are almost inevitable.
My key points were that any system has to be inclusive, can't be so hard to participate in that ordinary Canadians are frozen out, that a cannabis related criminal record should not be any barrier to participation, that legacy producers and distributors need to be included, that nobody under an age limit should ever have criminal charges arising from cannabis, that possession and plant limits are illogical and should not exist, that home production is a necessity and that there must be a separate medical system at least for home production (if there is a plant limit on rec production), access to all cannabis products (if some are not allowed in rec) and cost-reimbursement. Obviously there is and was a lot more but those are the highlights.
The group in the room was largely in agreement with much of this and with each other. People were there from public health, from medical professions, from First Nations, from research and from activism. Many familiar faces and some new ones.
The TF noted that the BC meetings were very good and that they learned a lot throughout this process. They also made clear that different parts of the country look at this issue very differently from each other. Finally, in response to diatribes from Pam McColl (who left at lunch without explanation) they made clear that this was about how to legalize not whether to legalize.
I think that production in the new regime will be federally controlled but that distribution will be provincially regulated. This means that provincial politicians need to be courted, educated and lobbied for the distribution system or systems that will be created. It also means that the current ACMPR producers are very likely to be allowed to participate in the new regime (unsurprisingly and of course they should be permitted like everyone else). In response to a specific question about obstacles in the current regime I said that the security clearance process needs fixing, that the security requirements are nonsense and a huge and unnecessary financial burden, that the timing of processing applications needs to dramatically improve and that the government should set basic quality control standards (eg, labelling requirements and levels of unwanted inputs) but should not micromanage how producers meet those standards.
There was a lot more and I may have some time to get into details in specific areas but the above is a general recap. Apologies in advance for not being able to answer specific questions.
Overall seems very positive, I have no idea why Pam McColl was invited (there are quite a few reasonable activists who could have taken her spot), but pretty glad from the sounds of it she stormed out after no one was buying her bullshit.
Busy day but I wanted to give a short recap of last Friday's Legalization Task Force meeting. The process is that the TF will make recommendations to Bill Blair who is acting as point person for three Ministers (Justice, Health and Public Safety). Mr. Blair will deliver the recommendations with his own comments and the government will do what it does.
The meeting covered five topic areas (set out in the discussion paper available to the public and which formed the basis for some 30,000 or more submissions already received by the TF). I believe that the TF is committed to doing its best to recommend a path forward that works for all Canadians. I also believe that there will be lots of things people don't agree with and lots of room for improvement. I also believe, as does the TF, that whatever legalization looks like on day one will not be the end of the matter and that changes over time are almost inevitable.
My key points were that any system has to be inclusive, can't be so hard to participate in that ordinary Canadians are frozen out, that a cannabis related criminal record should not be any barrier to participation, that legacy producers and distributors need to be included, that nobody under an age limit should ever have criminal charges arising from cannabis, that possession and plant limits are illogical and should not exist, that home production is a necessity and that there must be a separate medical system at least for home production (if there is a plant limit on rec production), access to all cannabis products (if some are not allowed in rec) and cost-reimbursement. Obviously there is and was a lot more but those are the highlights.
The group in the room was largely in agreement with much of this and with each other. People were there from public health, from medical professions, from First Nations, from research and from activism. Many familiar faces and some new ones.
The TF noted that the BC meetings were very good and that they learned a lot throughout this process. They also made clear that different parts of the country look at this issue very differently from each other. Finally, in response to diatribes from Pam McColl (who left at lunch without explanation) they made clear that this was about how to legalize not whether to legalize.
I think that production in the new regime will be federally controlled but that distribution will be provincially regulated. This means that provincial politicians need to be courted, educated and lobbied for the distribution system or systems that will be created. It also means that the current ACMPR producers are very likely to be allowed to participate in the new regime (unsurprisingly and of course they should be permitted like everyone else). In response to a specific question about obstacles in the current regime I said that the security clearance process needs fixing, that the security requirements are nonsense and a huge and unnecessary financial burden, that the timing of processing applications needs to dramatically improve and that the government should set basic quality control standards (eg, labelling requirements and levels of unwanted inputs) but should not micromanage how producers meet those standards.
There was a lot more and I may have some time to get into details in specific areas but the above is a general recap. Apologies in advance for not being able to answer specific questions.
Overall seems very positive, I have no idea why Pam McColl was invited (there are quite a few reasonable activists who could have taken her spot), but pretty glad from the sounds of it she stormed out after no one was buying her bullshit.
