Hacker News Reader

> Canada has made some progress since legalisation in 2018, but through a regionally varied patchwork of free-market and state-controlled supply systems that makes it hard to draw broad lessons

This strikes me as an odd claim. Each province has its own approach, and the provinces are large. Wouldn’t having varying approaches among different large regions be perfect for drawing lessons?

View on HN

It had to be this way. Provinces determine how alcohol and tobacco are sold within their borders; it would have been strange for cannabis distribution to be federally regulated.

Some useful comparisons can indeed be drawn. Quebec launched with a very restrictive distribution model. BC was quite liberal. The latter province has fared much better in terms of squeezing out profits for organized crime. There are virtually no unauthorized cannabis shops in the province and very little black market activity relative to pre-legalization.

Keep distribution straightforward and analogous to how tobacco and alcohol are sold, and keep taxes on cannabis low to cut out profits for the black market.

Some of the most successful BC stores are run by people still brokering in the black market.

Not with respect to the country as a whole. 'broad' is the key term in the sentence you quoted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com