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Comment by DKnoll | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't echo public sentiment at all. Many are critical of the way implementation has happened, whether for or against (at least in Ontario, the most populous province and the one I base everything that follows on).

Those who are 'for' are upset about the supply issues that have occurred with the legal supply being limited (long delays), more expensive and often poor quality (moldy).

Those who are indifferent are annoyed they have not offered any incentive to municipalities to allow stores (no share of taxes, no increase to enforcement budgets, no ability to control, limit or place restrictions on store locations) and made prices high making thus causing no reduction of the black market.

Those who are 'against' think private businesses selling weed will increase sale to minors and just generally make a bunch of moral panic arguments.

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I suspect this is some form of reverse survivor bias: the people who are happy with the service (like me) are not out on the streets cheering. It's fantastic, it's just not something that we talk about due to the stigma.

I smoked exceedingly rarely before legalization (3 times in my entire life) and now I smoke often. I'm happy to pay the paltry prices for the amount of enjoyment I get from it, and I know that the weed I get is safe for me to consume. It also arrives in a day or two after ordering. Most times I'm surprised it came so quick!

I'm in Ontario.

> I smoked exceedingly rarely before legalization (3 times in my entire life) and now I smoke often.

You are the boogeyman to the people who oppose legalisation. One of the rare people who didn't smoke simply to obey the law and are now getting stoned because it's legal. :P

I think the people who rarely smoked are the most happy, because they are not worried about a minor price increase but also appreciate the convenience and legal acceptance.

I am personally happy with legalisation and, as someone who no longer smokes but realises the relative lack of harm from consuming cannabis (especially as compared to alcohol), think it is the morally right thing to do.

Despite my own beliefs, public opposition to the rollout is still significant and definitely worth mentioning especially in a Reuters article that will be propagated everywhere.

> One of the rare people

We have no idea of the prevalance of this kind of person. There's no research.

(I am in favour of legalisation.)

It's honestly hard to believe there were people who didn't smoke simply because it was illegal, even though getting charged for personal amounts of cannabis in the GTA was about as common as being struck by lightning.

That said I applaud them. That's a very respectable level of restraint and community-mindedness (I swear that's a word).

The statistical reality isn’t operational for many people. Many people would not want to even begin to look for an underground supplier let alone deal with one.

(I am in favour of legalisation.)

I see you appreciate the weasel word 'many' as much as I do. It's very handy to avoid having to cite every statement (lol).

You're totally right that those people exist and there are 'many' of them. I'm going off conversations that have occurred and caused certain cities, especially in the Peel and Halton regions, to ban stores.

Honestly the real number of people who feel a type of way about legalisation doesn't even matter that much, especially when decisions like this are up to already elected representatives and not handled by referendum. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this is a fundamental issue with the implementation of democracy in the west. For issues that most people don't consider a hill to die on (or, at least, both sides) elected representatives don't end up voting in line with actual public opinion. A prime example of this fact is that legalization only happened in 2018 and not 20 years earlier.

I would've liked to try some drugs, weed included, but I haven't because I don't have contacts and I don't want to deal with some lowlife who will probably scam me. If they made weed legal I would probably give it a spin, and maybe even get hooked, much to my own loss since I, as many other people, lack self-control.

(I am against legalisation; I don't live in Canada.)

Your lack of self control should never usurp my freedom.

Would you also vote to ban fast food, video games, social media, and Netflix?

> It's honestly hard to believe there were people who didn't smoke simply because it was illegal

Yep, I agree.

But we need to talk not just about what happens today, but what happens in the future. If cannabis is normalised and legally available will that increase the use of cannabis?

>If cannabis is normalised and legally available will that increase the use of cannabis?

I think use of cannabis will increase in Canada after legalisation and I doubt anybody will disagree or project a decrease. I think a bigger question is whether public opinion will continue to trend favourably in light of current medical knowledge which seems to think that cannabis causes less harm than alcohol thus making it a better way to waste time and/or ease general existential angst on the weekends.

While I don't think more people getting stoned is necessarily 'win' for Canadian society, I think if it diverts them from other more harmful forms of impairment (alcohol or 'hard' drugs) it probably is.

It's honestly hard to believe there were people who didn't smoke simply because it was illegal

That was me. Although not because I was afraid of getting caught, but simply because the effort and logistics of attempting to get ahold of a consistent supply of quality weed without getting ripped off was not worth it.

> It's honestly hard to believe there were people who didn't smoke simply because it was illegal

For me it is completely easy to believe. Cannabis is not addictive enough for me to go to the trouble of getting it illegally.

I wonder how much data there is from countries where it has been legal for a long time, like the Netherlands. When I grew up it was as normal as normal smoking and drinking. Mushrooms were(and are, but they banned some of them I think) also legal but that was not very normal to use, at least not in my circles. All my friends and many of their parents smoked a spliff or 2 in the weekend. Same as they drank some beers. But only the illegal stuff (at that time xtc, speed, heroine and cocaine) was used to excesses that caused issues. I don't think they ever legalized those, but non-dealers were not arrested and the police checked the quality of drugs at parties to filter out bad stuff; when that started happening, the abuse went down too. My crazy house friends (usually converts from metal to house at the beginning of the 90s) went from dangerous abuse to more controlled and moderate use now that it was 'normal'.

So yes, that's all anecdotal, but at least in my circles I have seen over the past 30 years that (semi)legalizing indeed helps a lot; because there is a 40-50 year trackrecord in countries like NL, there must be someone who researched it and has data about the actual effects of legalization and 'gedoog' (semi-legalization) strategies?

May I suggest 'non-enforcement' as a better translation of 'gedogen'?

Maybe "tolerated", that's what the analouge Word in German means.

"Decriminalisation" is the usual term in English for the Netherlands legal policy on cannabis.

Toleration/decriminalisation and harm reduction policies are really important, to give you a parallel: look here at Sweden [0] that despite being really socially progressive in regards to gender and social equality still has some of the most strict drug policies in the developed world. It's not only illegal to trade drugs but also to consume them, if you are caught, for example, during a raid on a rave by the police and they test you for drugs you will get fined and can go to court for it (being imprisoned isn't happening though). You will still have a record for about 5 years even though you had no drugs in your possession. Also, needle exchange programs are fucked up as there is not national policy, it's left to the kommuner and so these programs vary wildly between cities, addicts die because of this paralysis of the system.

Portugal is the most common example of how harm reduction policies help to decrease mortality and usage, a better informed population where drugs aren't taboo makes their usage be lower and more responsible.

I have some Dutch friends, most don't really smoke weed as often, usually on a special occasion. Harder drugs usage is also more responsible, most of them test their drugs before consuming, don't overdo it. Openness and information invites responsibility.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/bqfprnj.png

To your first point, I am really curious to see what we will discover once it is widely available.

Up until now it was mostly conjectures, and very biased observations only (not only because of preconceptions, but also because the smoking population was so fringe). Even if it ends up there’s tons of unpredicted critically bad side effects, at least we’ll be out of the boogyeman phase and will have solid evidence of what’s good and wvat’s bad.

> You are the boogeyman to the people who oppose legalisation. One of the rare people who didn't smoke simply to obey the law and are now getting stoned because it's legal. :P

As a pre- and post-legalization smoker, I always thought this was a naive view. Having to deal with a sketchy flaky street dealer (not to mention finding one to begin with) is absolutely going to turn a lot of people off of smoking. And speaking from experience, waiting on an empty street corner for 20-30 minutes for your dealer to show up (because he's always late) gives you a lot of time to introspect and question your choices...

It is really nothing like walking into a clean retail store with regular business hours, display cases, and pretty young cashiers. The street dealer situation makes you feel like a lowlife piece of shit who has a lot of growing up to do; the legal retail situation makes you feel like a yuppie walking into an Apple Store. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this new option led to 2 or 3 times as many people smoking. And to me, that's completely fine (really, good for me since it makes it more socially acceptable).

I think the smokers who believed that legalization didn't offer a more appealing purchasing option for a ton of people must be the 24/7 stoners who only have other 24/7 stoners as friends and can't imagine not having immediate access to weed.

And this is exactly why widespread legalization is a bad idea.

Take really care about that dude. Just like few drinks here and there, few cigarettes once in a while or even pain medication when you really need are not dangerous, continuous use just because "It's easy to get and it feels good" have major long term impact on you health.

None of the other things you listed are illegal? Anyway, something being bad in excess doesn't mean it should be illegal in moderation.

I would argue its too early to tell that things are going bad, the Cannabis Act was put in place on October 17th which is only 6 months ago.

Moreover, most retail stores in Ontario were given very short notice (~2-4 months) to build the stores and open up on April 1st couple weeks ago. I would say in a year or two, we would have likely forgotten about all this and will be having normal and regular deliveries via Canada Post like any other product.

https://www.thestar.com/news/cannabis/2019/03/18/will-ontari...

I'd say it's way too early for Ontario reactions seeing as how no stores (or enough to count on one hand) are open.

I don’t really have any complaints about how they implemented it here in Ontario. It’s far better than what the previous government had planned.

Granted, I don’t smoke that often - but I’ve been to one of the stores and ordered from OCS online and have nothing negative to say. Maybe I just had low expectations?

Public perception may start to change now that retail has opened up (of the 'pro' people at least) but I have heard a lot of complaints. Even OCS has acknowledged massive supply issues following the rollout (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/canada-is-running-out-of-l...).

Where those who oppose or are on the fence form a majority (or at least a vocal one) municipalities have banned stores for now. I expect once the province smartens up and gives municipalities the ability to control proximity to schools, parks, churches and other places the law expects children to congregate (or gives up some of that sweet tax money) the people who are on the fence will lighten up.

The Chinese community in the GTA is a great advocate, and cause, of municipalities banning stores. They form a large and vocal bloc and for whatever reason seem to view cannabis as a hard drug and oppose any form of decriminalisation or legalisation.

"It’s far better than what the previous government had planned."

I disagree. Sure, a free market is better than a government monopoly, but marijuana isn't anywhere close to a free market. It's highly regulated and highly constrained. Only 25 stores were allowed to open province wide in one of the biggest giveaways to the private sector ever. Those licenses are probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars each and Ford just gave them away to lucky lottery winners. And of course he's going to protect them -- no city is going to allow the Mac's milk shop on every corner to start selling pot so those lottery winners are just going to print money for themselves, and lobby for their own interests, not ours.

Better a government monopoly with profits going to the taxpayer than a private sector oligopoly.

There is a concerted campaign going on online right now to paint legal weed as a massive failure, so the current Canadian government cant count it as an achievement.

Hasn't been perfect of course, but its far from the disaster certain groups are trying to paint it as.

There are many groups who don't just try to paint it as a failure, they strongly believe it is one. No disinformation campaign needed, they just speak their firmly held beliefs and real perceptions.

Most of the actual failures fall on the provincial governments in my view. I think cannabis legalisation will probably be one of the few positive achievements history sees from the Trudeau administration although I hope I'm wrong.

Yeah, my mind initially read the title as 'legal pot isn't going well for Canada', then I realized what it actually said and was confused. The physical storefronts in Ontario have been a mess, with some areas, like Ottawa getting 3 stores, with most of Ontario not having anything and a lot of people don't want to buy online. Though I don't really think it's a big deal at this point, it's new and going through lots of bumps now, but overtime will work itself out.

I don't smoke anymore so I mostly rely on second-hand accounts. I'm of the same mind though, anything the government does has bumps, it's still progress.

The Ontario provincial government is a walking disaster, and their implementation of marijuana legalization is just a reflection of that. The rollout went smoothly in other provinces.

Despite my general negative feelings toward the Ford government, their privatisation of stores was the right move. Unfortunately, it came far too late (the previous Wynne government opted for government-run stores, both retail and online, before the Ford government was elected four months prior to legalisation) and ended up giving everyone too little time to handle it gracefully.

I have heard that the roll-out went very well in Alberta, although they also have a very lax approach to alcohol sales unlike Ontario.

I think the supply bottle-neck is the reason. All the pot has to come from a few hand-picked suppliers. Also there are claimed Liberal ties to pot production. Some quick links (although I suggest taking this with a grain of salt given the source):

https://potfacts.ca/the-liberal-party-elite-is-heavily-inves...

https://ottawasun.com/2015/10/28/liberal-cfo-could-rake-in-m...

I haven't heard any moral outrage arguments in the press or otherwise. Remember that this isn't only a youth issue or it wouldn't be used in a federal campaign promise. It is, by definition, widely supported. Recall that people well into their 60s and 70s came of age smoking pot.

IMHO there's much more moral outrage associated with the Conservative plan to reduce drinking restrictions. Ontario remains a pretty uptight place.

There are complains but its generally going fine. Supply issues will be worked out.

Absolutely every public offering has these same groups of critics. It's simply not a useful signal for whether things are going well or not.

FWIW that pretty much described Colorado at first. The supply needed time to come online & stabilize, and then the pros were happy, prices came down, and the against group saw minors didn't really have more access and stopped complaining.

I want to say it took about 18 months.

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