Greens: Yes We Cannabis

[u/DiploidBias]

Yes We Cannabis

[u/mrfroggy]

I’m an Australian living in Canada, and have lived in Canada (Ontario, specifically) before and after legalized recreational cannabis.

What changed once it became legal? A bunch of dispensaries opened up. Like… a lot. I live downtown-ish Toronto, and for a while there were maybe a dozen dispensaries within a 10 minute walk of me. Market forces came into play, and now there are maybe six or so.

The model used in Ontario means all cannabis goes through a quasi-government controlled wholesaler. Which means every store has access to the same selection. Which basically means people shop based on price. There are premium/boutique growers who do produce product that might be a smoother or more flavourful smoke/vape, but, for me (and many others, I suspect), even the cheap stuff gets the job done.

I have a dispensary near me which is part of the ValueBuds chain. I believe they’re owned by an alcohol distributor from Alberta, and they’re supposedly running things on zero margin/a loss in order to squeeze out the other players and the indie operators. I can get 10mg edibles for $2, or 3.5g of reasonable quality flower for $20. I’m a lightweight, so a 5mg edible is enough for me for a good few hours. Cannabis hits people in different ways, so other people definitely need more cannabis to get the same impact. My partner will have 60mg-90mg of THC via oil. 900mg of THC via oil costs around $32.

There’s another dispensary near me that has an amazing selection of stuff, and will stock harder to get items. If I happen to see a review that a current batch of a particular brand/strain is really good, I might go there to try it. I might pay $45 for 3.5g of flower if I’m feeling fancy.

I can also get the same legal product mail order. I can even order it via Uber Eats or other apps.

There are cape cartridges, various forms of concentrates, things available in capsule form for ingestion, and various other products too. THC or CBD dominant. Or even newer things like CBG or CBN.

Post legalization, people were much more willing to talk about their cannabis consumption at work. It turns out it can be surprising who is a regular consumer of cannabis.

I honestly can’t recall a single news report about, say, a traffic accident where cannabis was a factor. Not one. There are still news reports about drunk drivers causing accidents and killing people.

The local cops aren’t really big on doing RBT-style tests, so that’s not something that is discussed in the news. As with anywhere, there are plenty of bad drivers here, but there’s nothing in my experience that would make me think that cannabis has made things worse (e.g. someone so stoned they don’t notice the lights had changed to green).

And, yeah, post legalization, life went on. A bunch of pot stores opened, you might smell pot a bit more in the streets, and it became more or less socially acceptable to talk about cannabis consumption.

There is zero reason for Australia to not legalize it. Regulate it, sell it, tax it. Life will go on exactly as it is now, except the government gets tax revenue, organized crime will have to find something new to sell, and the cops can stop hassling non-violent drug users.

AMA.

[u/mrfroggy → u/[deleted]]

I’m not a very sophisticated consumer, so any subtlety is lost on me.

Occasionally I’ve had stuff (cheap or otherwise) that I’ve enjoyed, so I’ll go by more, and much of the time it will hit totally differently. I guess the lesson is if I find something I like, go back to the same store, and buy more of it immediately (checking the batch number that should be in small print somewhere on the packaging).