As Canada moves closer and closer to fully legalizing marijuana, it’s inevitable that the provinces will roll out their plans for their own personalized legalization processes. The Ontario provincial government has decided on the interesting choice to make its process of legalization bad and counter-productive. Ontario’s recent announcement to sell marijuana through LCBO-run shops is a bad idea for practical, consumer, and ethical reasons.
Ontario plans to open 80 dispensaries run by the LCBO by 2019, which is not inherently a bad idea. What is a bad idea is the province’s plan to crack down on existing private marijuana dispensaries.
I will say it outright: there is no logical reason to shut down existing dispensaries. Private dispensaries provide a pre-existing infrastructure for the marijuana business, and bring a loyal customer base with them. Private dispensaries have also gained the trust of their customers, and know how to cater to them. They are the experts on how to sell marijuana, and the province wants to take them out of the game for concerns of ‘safety.’
Firstly, private dispensaries have no reason to not make their products safe, because most business models are based on the assumption that your audience will remain alive (so they can, you know, come back to your business).
Secondly, this move on the government’s part comes off like a cash grab, as if the province is worrying about not being able to profit off legalization. To that I suggest—taxes? I, for one, would be completely fine paying heavy taxes on marijuana if it meant it would stay in private dispensaries. That way, the government would still profit while not having to worry about competition from a more experienced, more passionate private movement.
This even overlooks the more prominent issues that would come with LCBO-run dispensaries. To start, the LCBO does not know how to cater to its desired audience, and it does not know the product it wishes to push. This will hurt the consumer experience, and possibly cause consumers to go underground again for their fix, where they can get seriously hurt if their product comes into contact with any harder, more dangerous substances, like fentanyl.
This is where we encounter a problem with the numbers associated with Ontario’s plan. As stated before, the plan is to open 80 dispensaries by 2019. By comparison, there are over 1,000 combined LCBO’s and Beer Stores across the province. Think about whether 80 stores across Ontario can really support demand, or provide any sort of quality service—and only 40 for the first year and a half, remember that 80 stores is a projection for 2019.
If private dispensaries were allowed to stay open, then the mass congestion which will occur with 80 stores won’t happen, and the government could still make plenty of money off the enterprise through taxes.
Every way I look at this plan, I just see more and more people returning to local dealers who will be dealing in a very different world.
Suppliers that may have been ‘reputable’ before legalization may be forced to find their product from other sources, sources which are less conscientious about which products mix with what.
In conclusion, the Ontario plan for legalization is a short-sighted and greedy one. To be clear, I am all for marijuana legalization, and I think it should have happened long ago, but this particular plan has some serious flaws which will only push business away.
Photo by Meagan Casalino
