SunriseChampion
Bluelighter
Yeah, I've read a lot of these articles and pieces related to David Nutt. I admire him for straight talking the politician wankers and not standing down even when faced with obstinate resistance from ignorant or ill-intentioned politicians.
Our marijuana legalisation regime is not without its pretty serious flaws and has utterly failed to curb the black market. Which is fine, to a certain degree. Why should the cultivation of a damn plant be referred to as a black market in the first place? It's not ideal still having dodgy and violent criminal elements being involved in production and distribution but the stuff has become so democratised here that they've been pushed out more by non-criminal black market operatives than by the legal market.
It's still early days, as well, so a lot will probably change as the rules are constantly being tweaked.
One of the biggest failures here was the refusal at first by the government of Ontario to allow private retail shops. Ontario is the biggest province in Canada by quite a margin (almost twice the population of the next biggest, Quebec, for example) and a lack of retail shops in Ontario to begin with seriously fucked with the whole cultivation and distribution system in the country.
Our government in Ontario originally set up an Ontario Cannabis Store modelled after our Liquor Control Board which is the only shops that sell liquor here and have a sort of monopoly on procurement and distribution and heavily regulate the market with, for example, minimum pricing and shelf space quotas even at private shops.
That wasn't working out and there was a change of government here and the new started opening up the market to private retailers through a damn lottery and quot system which was super bunk. The number of retail shops is still less than in some much less populous provinces. It's slowly opening up more though.
It will take time, but I'm sure in the next decade it will become quite sophisticated.
As for supervised injection sites, we do indeed have those, all over the place. They've become so socially accepted that even some conservative politicians who were traditionally opposed to them are allowing them to be set up in their various jurisdictions.
The most promising development, I personally think, is the GCMS/LCMS drugs testing available in Toronto which is paid for in part by our federal Ministry of Health and is done at two local hospitals through three local public health clinics run by non-profit organisations. If this programme were to be expanded nation-wide, it'd do wonders for harm reduction, I reckon.
