The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is calling on federal lawmakers to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs for personal consumption. CACP's president, Adam Palmer, said it's time to rethink how police and governments approach the use and abuse of illegal drugs in order to save lives. "Arresting individuals for simple possession of illicit drugs has proven to be ineffective. It does not save lives," Palmer said. "The CACP recognizes substance use and addiction as a public health issue. Being addicted to a controlled substance is not a crime and should not be treated as such. We recommend that Canada's enforcement-based approach for possession be replaced with a health care approach that diverts people from the criminal justice system."

Los medios lo catalogaron la "" de Canadá, porque inversores como el rapero Snoop Dogg y un exjefe de la policía de Toronto mostraron interés en obtener una porción del millonario pastel. Pero los resultados, señala Jonathan Rubin, que preside New Leaf Data Services, un centro de estudios que monitorea los precios del mercado, han sido decepcionantes. "No hemos notado el crecimiento en ventas y ganancias que predijimos", admite. "No es que sea un fracaso, pero definitivamente hay frustraciones". Parte del objetivo de legalizar la marihuana era reducir el mercado negro, pero hoy la mayoría de los consumidores siguen comprando ahí.

The federal government is rejecting several Senate changes to its cannabis legalization bill, setting the stage for a possible showdown between the Senate and the House of Commons. The Senate has proposed 46 amendments, and while the government is accepting some of them, it is passing on several major ones. According to the House's order paper, the changes the government plans to reject include: affirming the provinces' right to ban home cultivation of marijuana; banning branded promotional items; and establishing a public registry of all cannabis companies' directors, officers, controlling parent corporations or trusts, and their directors, members and shareholders. (See also: Trudeau battles provinces, Senate for right of Canadians to grow cannabis)

When Canadians have expressed concerns about upcoming cannabis legalization, the government has assured them that the legal cannabis industry will be strictly regulated to protect public health. This promise raises important questions: Has legalization of our other drug industries – alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals – prevented harm from their misuse? Have these drug industries effectively balanced the pursuit of revenue with protection of public health? Has government regulation of drug industries been effective? Canadians have far more to fear from a revenue-obsessed, poorly regulated cannabis industry than they do from cannabis itself. (See also: Marijuana stocks ‘a bubble ready to burst’ | The wild west of weed: will legalisation work for Canada?)

At the outset of legalization, people who defied prohibition in high-profile ways appear to be getting shut out of a burgeoning industry just as the former police officers and politicians that they once battled continue to land lucrative gigs working with commercial cannabis producers. Those caught and sentenced for operating large production networks or running illegal dispensary franchises, like Marc and Jodie Emery, have so far been unable to get past the security screening and into the regulated space under the current rules. They also won’t qualify for the amnesty that Ottawa has promised for the tens of thousands of other Canadians saddled with a conviction for the possession of less than 30 grams of cannabis.

Much has been made about the price difference between the legal and illegal cannabis markets in Canada, but the information surrounding the topic of prices on the illicit and licit markets is misleading. Statistics Canada’s most recent figures from earlier this year show legal cannabis being about twice the supposed cost of illegal or black market cannabis, with legal cannabis on average selling at about $10.30 per gram compared to about $5.73 per gram for illicit cannabis. But while the numbers for legal cannabis provided by Statistics Canada are based on verifiable numbers in legal, regulated stores both online and brick-and-mortar, the pricing for cannabis purchased from the illegal sector is based on anonymous polling data collected by the federal government.

When it was first proposed, the concept of marijuana legalization seemed solid enough. Take the world’s most popular illicit substance, establish a taxed and regulated marketplace and watch all of the evil associated with the herb – the criminal activity, the youth consumption – fade away into a footnote of American history. And by all accounts, it was a plan that should have worked. Considering all of the insanity surrounding the cannabis trade, it’s hard to argue that marijuana legalization is working. It should be, but the scene is just too convoluted. Sure, the polls show the majority of the U.S. population supports marijuana legalization. But that doesn’t mean they will buy it legally once it happens.

There are good reasons to legally regulate drugs markets, rather than persist with efforts to ban all non-medical uses of psychoactive substances. Regulated cannabis and coca markets are already a reality in several countries, with more likely to follow. But ignoring or denying that such policy shifts contravene certain obligations under the UN drug control treaties is untenable and risks undermining basic principles of international law. States enacting cannabis regulation must find a way to align their reforms with their international obligations.

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It's been a year since the province rushed to create new guidelines allowing doctors to prescribe hydromorphone to patients with opioid use disorders, as a way to give them an alternative to toxic illicit drugs. The change came as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take a significant toll in the province. Combined with the overdose crisis dating back to 2016, health officials had two major public health emergencies on their hands. But now, as overdose deaths continue to rise, killing more than five people in the province each day according to the latest BC Coroners Service update, many are identifying shortfalls in the so called 'safe supply' program — technically called the Risk Mitigation Guidance — that kicked off last March.

A new Canadian study about safe-injection sites for intravenous drug users concludes that they are cost-effective to the health-care system — an argument that is likely to be advanced as Montreal takes steps to open four such facilities in the city. Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto carried out an analysis that compared the projected costs of maintaining supervised injection sites over a period of 20 years with the potential savings to the health system in averted HIV and hepatitis C infections. The researchers’ estimates were conservative, as they did not include other infections associated with intravenous drug use and the costs involved in treating and hospitalizing patients suffering from overdoses.

Public health officials across Canada are seriously considering increasing the supply of safer opioids to quell a crisis that newly released data show helped claim more than 2,000 lives in the first half of the year. Canada’s chief public health officer said Wednesday a toxic drug supply is a key part of Canada’s opioid epidemic. Creating a safer opioid supply is “being actively reviewed and discussed” with provinces and territories, Dr. Theresa Tam said, and will require exploring what treatments people require. (See also: Ending the overdose epidemic starts with a safe supply of drugs)

Sanidad va a retomar la regulación del cannabis medicinal. Fuentes del ministerio han confirmado que pretenden reimpulsar la creación de un programa médico. El Congreso aprobó a finales de la pasada legislatura un documento que instaba al Gobierno a regular el uso medicinal del cannabis, pero el anterior equipo ministerial acabó dejando morir la iniciativa, que decayó del todo con el adelanto electoral. Además, hay partidos que también van a agitar el árbol de la legalización integral. La pasada legislatura ya se registraron varias iniciativas parlamentarias que decayeron por motivos variados – el principal es que el PSOE no lo veía. (Véase también: La gran mayoría de españoles, a favor de legalizar el uso terapéutico de la marihuana, según el CIS)

El líder del partido oficialista Morena en el Senado, Ricardo Monreal, espera que antes de diciembre se apruebe una ley para el uso recreativo de la droga, que permitiría a firmas privadas reguladas venderla al público. La industria legal del cannabis ya es un comercio mundial de miles de millones de dólares, y algunos grandes jugadores, incluidos Canopy Growth y The Green Organic Dutchman, de Canadá; y una unidad de la californiana Medical Marijuana Inc, están ansiosos por acceder al nuevo mercado mexicano. Si bien una industria del cannabis en crecimiento promete ser una máquina de hacer dinero, enfrenta la resistencia de los activistas que están preocupados de que las regulaciones favorezcan a las grandes corporaciones, a menudo extranjeras.

Quien decidía invertir en los últimos años en acciones de productos estadounidenses derivados del cannabis se sentía un poco como un buscador de oro. Algunas acciones crecían sin parar, produciendo ganancias de varios miles por ciento. Por ejemplo, las de Canopy Growth, el mayor productor del sector, que registraron un alza del 290.000 por ciento. Pero de ese auge inicial parece ya no quedar demasiado: la burbuja del cannabis se desvanece en el aire, y con ella, ese mercado perdió valor por cerca de 35.000 millones de dólares. Las acciones de Aurora Cannabis fueron unas de las más afectadas, con pérdidas del 60 por ciento. Canopy Growth perdió casi 375 millones de dólares.

Los títulos de compañías enfocadas al sector de la cannabis tuvieron un 2020 complicado ante un mercado que no termina de consolidarse y algunos problemas de las emisoras para entregar cifras financieras que den mayor certidumbre a los inversionistas. El EQM Global Cannabis Index, que refleja los movimientos de precios de las acciones de empresas globales que cotizan en Bolsa y que participan en la industria de la cannabis tuvo una caída en 2020 de 6.92%, de los 41.34 puntos en que finalizó el 2019 a los 38.48 enteros en que cerró el año pasado, según cifras de Refinitiv. Las acciones de la canadiense Aurora Cannabis, productora, distribuidora y comercializadora de cannabis medicinal cayeron el año pasado 68.34% en la Bolsa de Toronto.

Mark Spear might be a thorn in the side of the Canadian weed industry. Or he may be a heel. He certainly stands out when it comes to gently pissing off the ones writing the rules on the Green Mile of corporate weed on Bay Street. Across the country, there are thousands more like Mark Spear – old-school cannabis folks who know how to grow weed better than anyone, and who want to see cannabis grown in the ground under the Canadian sun. They’re the former outlaws of the cannabis industry who were supposed to benefit the most from legalization. The Harper-era privatization of medical cannabis has led to a deeply corporatized recreational weed market. And for folks like Spear, it’s all a bit disappointing.

Adults in British Columbia will be allowed to possess small amounts of some illicit drugs starting next year, the federal government announced — a move that marks a dramatic shift in Canada's drug policy. The federal government says Canadians 18 years of age and older will be able to possess up to a cumulative 2.5 grams of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA within British Columbia. The announcement is in response to a request from the province for an exemption from the law criminalizing drug possession. Critics take issue with low threshold amount, delay in implementation and potential for discrimination. (See also: British Columbia will decriminalize drug possession | B.C. decriminalization plan won't do much to stop toxic drug deaths, says chief coroner)

It’s been just three short years since cannabis was legalized in Canada, but it’s already clear the nation’s exorbitant taxation on cannabis cultivators is not only unsustainable; it’s killing craft growers that are paying more in tax than they earn in margins. Earlier this month, Tantalus Labs CEO Dan Sutton outlined exactly how problematic Canada’s cannabis excise tax is, with small businesses paying as much as 30 percent of their top line revenues to it, in a Twitter thread. “We are milking a calf to death,” he wrote. The industry emphatically agreed, and since then, the conversation has evolved into a campaign to raise the issue with lawmakers.

Two years on, the Canadian cannabis legalisation experiment hasn’t quite turned out as we reformers had hoped. The black market is still vibrant while cannabis stocks have crashed, medical patients say they can’t get hold of essential medicines, and thousands of jobs have been lost. So what went wrong – and what went right? Alastair Moore, co-founder of Hanway Associates, a London-based cannabis consultancy, says the Canadian industry has been driven by vulture capitalism and wishful thinking. “A mix of greed and naivety led this industry to great heights – and has left it on its knees. While some made lots of money, others lost their investments and now many others have lost their jobs.”

Legalizing marijuana in B.C. could generate $2.5 billion in government tax and licensing revenues over the next five years, according to a study published this month in the International Journal of Drug Policy. The information comes after Washington state and Colorado passed measures two weeks ago approving the legalization of marijuana for adult use under a strictly regulated system.