Marijuana in Montreal: Advocate sees bright future for legalized pot

Montreal is abuzz with the federal Liberal government's electoral promise to legalize marijuana.

So CBC Montreal's Daybreak is rolling out a week-long series it's calling Montreal 420, which will take a look at the challenges and opportunities facing the city if the federal government legalizes marijuana for recreational use.

• Montreal 420: the future of legalized marijuana
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To launch the series, Daybreak spoke to Adam Greenblatt, co-founder and executive director of Santé Cannabis, Quebec's first medical marijuana clinic, and asked him what he thought about the future of marijuana in Quebec.

Here are key excerpts of that interview with Greenblatt:

What the marijuana industry looks like now:

The medical marijuana industry was privatized by the Harper government a few years ago. There are now more than 20 companies that have been licensed by Health Canada to grow and sell cannabis for medical purposes.

It's an example of a strictly over-regulated system.

Licensed producers are not allowed to run storefronts, and they're very limited in terms of the types of products that they can sell. It is a world-class system in terms of how the federal government regulates [cannabis], but there's still some intrinsic flaws.

On selling marijuana at the SAQ:

I think it's the path of least resistance for provincial governments [which] are just starting to wrap their heads around it.

But ultimately, I don't feel that liquor stores are the best place to sell cannabis, and I don't think that we need to enact a state monopoly on marijuana sales in order to restrict access to youth.

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I think that there's already a very diverse and well established private sector for medical cannabis, and non-medical cannabis as well, that could be brought into whatever framework comes out.

What legalized marijuana will look like:

[It will look] very much like it looks in places like Colorado, Oregon and even Vancouver. I think you'll see government-regulated but privately owned marijuana retail outlets. You're going to need coffee shops and social clubs where people can go and use marijuana together, like how we go to bars and enjoy alcohol together.

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You're also going to need provisions that draw the line between growing for yourself and growing for a commercial purpose with the intent to sell, so there will be a licensing system set up for producers and retailers.

The effect of legalization on the black market:

That depends how it's done.

If the legalization that's enacted is too restrictive and over-regulated, it will do nothing to curb the proliferation of organized crime and their capacity to profit from the cannabis trade.

We need to be able to strike the right balance in the regulation that incentivizes current cannabis consumers to come over to the legal market, and that means it can't be over-taxed, it can't be over-regulated, there can't be arbitrary restrictions on the types of products available, and these are all risks that we'll be hashing out (pun intended) over the years to come.

On increasing legal penalties:

In terms of supplying to minors, yes, we would have to craft some new laws like we have for alcohol and tobacco — it's not legal to sell to minors.

But in terms of impaired driving, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Whether you're impaired by alcohol or cannabis, or fatigue or prescription pain medication — we've got very strong laws against that already.

How his clinic would change:

Our clinic is still very much focused on research and data collection, so we don't expect much will change.

Cannabis is also an emergent medical treatment for a lot of different conditions, and we need to know a lot more about it. For this last century of prohibition, that kind of research has been difficult to do.

There's still a need for medical marijuana, and under a legalized framework, the difference should be that people with a prescription should get cost coverage for that marijuana, and they should not be paying whatever excise or sin tax is applied to the recreational consumer.

On the downsides to public health:

The dependence rate is pretty low for cannabis — it's about nine per cent if you take the data at face value.

Overdosing is also quite rare with cannabis. It's impossible to have a fatal overdose, but if you eat a brownie it can be very strong, especially to inexperienced users.

This entire process of legalizing cannabis will have to be paralleled with a sensible health awareness campaign that raises awareness about what you can and can't do within these new marijuana laws.

Canada on the edge of something big:

Canada is already a leader in the marijuana sector worldwide. Other countries look to our medical program as an example, and I believe the same will happen with non-medical marijuana.

The future is bright for Canada and legal cannabis.

Follow the conversation every day this week on Daybreak. Tune in to CBC Montreal on the radio or listen live here.