Cannabis now legal in Canada

[Scooter]

First legal weed sold in Canada at Newfoundland shops

The first legal recreational cannabis has officially been sold in Canada.

In Newfoundland and parts of Labrador, which has a separate timezone from the rest of Canada, midnight comes earlier, and people were ready and waiting for marijuana to be sold to them over the counter.

The first sales went to Ian Power and Nikki Rose, who lined up outside awaiting the opening of the Tweed retail location on Water Street in downtown St. John's.

The lineup at the Tweed store started at around 8 p.m. NT, and steadily grew as the time ticked down to 12 a.m.

Ian Power lined up at 8 p.m. so he could "make history."

"It's been my dream to be the first person to buy the first legal gram of cannabis in Canada, and here I finally am," Power said.

"I'm elated. I'm so excited, I can't stop smiling. I'm not cold. It's freezing cold out, but I'm not cold."

Marijuana became legal across Canada as of Oct. 17, months later than the original target date set out by the federal government. The Senate passed the bill earlier this year, making Canada only the second country to legalize cannabis.

Tweed opened its doors just before midnight so customers could start filing in, amid a crowd of media, to line up to buy their first legal bud.

"When's the last time you bought a gram and got a receipt for it? Never happened," said Canopy CEO Bruce Linton to his first customers, Power and Rose, as they stood in the front of the line for sales to officially start.

"For me it just proves that Canadians are open to this, they're ready for this. It's not like, 'Oh my God look at that sketchy character,'" Linton told CBC News after ringing in the first sale.

Linton added that at the company's headquarters in Smiths Falls, Ont., he was approached by a 102-year-old woman who was curious about cannabis products.

"Everybody wants to understand it," Linton said. "They don't like ignoring it."

Meanwhile, Power, who said he has advocated for cannabis users and patients for years, said he's hopeful legalization will help eliminate what he calls stigma around the substance.

"I think the social stigma of the 'stupid stoner' or the criminal element for using cannabis, a benign substance, as my choice of medicine or recreation, I think that's gonna change," Power said.

"Cannabis is in all walks of life. People who are unemployed, to the lawyers and judges in the country, so why not?"

Last week, the Newfoundland and Labrador government announced that as of 12:01 a.m., marijuana would be able to be sold.

The NLC, the Crown regulatory agency, then said retailers would be allowed to operate from 9 a.m. until 2 a.m., meaning there's a two-hour window at the very start of Oct. 17 when marijuana can be purchased.

Canopy Growth, one Canada's largest cannabis companies, officially opened its Tweed store at 11:30 p.m.

Linton nearly missed the first legal sale due to high winds Tuesday that delayed his flight, but he was able to land to be on hand to sell the country's first legal weed.

There are a number of other retailers, like THC Distribution in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, just outside of St. John's, where owners are also opening for midnight sales.

Owner Thomas H. Clarke said he's "living the dream" opening a pot store at home, but worries that he might be out of product by Friday.

His first customer was his father, Don, while a crowd of about 100 people waited outside in line on a chilly and windy night to make their first legal purchases.

"It's awesome," said Don Clarke, about buying from his son's shop.

He said it feels "unbelievable" to be able to purchase marijuana legally, after being a user for 50 years.

"A bit late. I mean, we could have done this in 1969 or '71," he said.

"It's been discussed at length — to overkill."

While the supply may be limited when sales start up, Clarke said there will be a wider selection available as time passes and more items hit the market.

Other shops also had lines outside their doors once midnight hit, with people scurrying to get in and make their legal purchases of marijuana before the mandatory closure at 2 a.m.

Each province sets its own marijuana regulations, including at what age people can purchase it, locations, quantity limits and smoking locations.

[Lord Jim]

Gee, maybe now wes will move up there...

[Scooter]

[eddieq]

I was in Denver the day legalized weed went into effect. I asked a cop who was directing traffic how everything was going. He said, "Every has been quite mellow"

[BoSoxGal]

People generally do relax on marijuana, so drive with less aggression - but it’s still DUI/DWI/OUI and not a joking matter, really, because impairment costs thousands of lives yearly, with many thousands more left maimed or emotionally annihilated.

I know I’m no fun anymore.

[Scooter]

It's absolutely something to be concerned about; I was reading a study that came out recently showing marked impairment while driving more than 5 hours after smoking. What I don't buy is that there is somehow going to be an explosion of people driving under the influence of MJ who wouldn't already have been doing so when it was illegal. Nor do I have any sympathy for police who claim they cannot be ready to enforce DUI under legalization because they haven't trained sufficient officers to be up to the task. Uh, hello, and what have you been doing for the past 50 years when a driver rolled down his/her window and you smelled marijuana? Why should it be any different now?

[Big RR]

the problem with marijuana impairment is that there are no statutes I am aware of that define "impaired" based on blood levels (and there are no statutes requiring the person to take a blood test so far as I know) which leaves it to the judgment of the officer. In NJ there was a case where an officer testified that the person had glassy eyes that he smelled marijuana in the car, and the driver's urine had evidence of marijuana (but no quantitative level), and the court found this sufficient to say the driver was impaired (it was upheld in the superior court).

On the other hand, I recall a report (either from the NIH or sponsored by it) that said marijuana did not impair driving until fairly significant blood levels--at lower levels any effects could easily be compensated for by the driver; the report concluded that additional tests had to be done to establish when a driver was impaired and the threshold levels for such impairment. To the best of my knowledge this has not been done and any amount of marijuana in the blood can be used to trigger the draconian penalties of DUI. It appears that marijuana is far less of a problem than alcohol, but it is treated far more severely by the courts. Of course, making safer roads has never been the primary purpose of any of these laws, given the draconian fines and penalties meted out--it's a bonanza for the towns, states, and insurance companies.

Scooter--would you have a link to that study, I'd like to read it.

[Scooter]

I didn't read the actual study but saw news reports of it.

[Big RR]

I'll try googling it--was it fairly recent?

[Scooter]

Yes.

[Big RR]

OK, thanks. I have represented people on DUI charges and keep a file on this topic, so I hope I can locate it.

[dales]

Cheech and Chong star tries to travel to Canada for cannabis legalisation day 'but can't find passport'

Tim Wyatt,The Independent 14 hours ago


Canada’s most famous stoner, comedian and actor Tommy Chong, is unsure if he can make it back home for the day cannabis is legalised because he has lost his passport.

The 80-year-old, who starred in the famous reefer comedy Up In Smoke in 1972 and now lives in California, was supposed to appear at an event in British Columbia on Wednesday but discovered while packing that he has mislaid his travel documents.

“We’re trying. Right now, I’m stuck here. I lost my passport, so we’re going through the dance of a celebrity trying to get a passport fast,” he told the Toronto Star.

Chong became one of the most well-known marijuana advocates along with his comedy partner, Cheech Marin, during the heydey of the stoner era in the 1970s.

The duo released a string of comedy music albums as well as films like Up In Smoke, which follows the drugged-up pair trying to haplessly evade the cops on a long road trip from California to Mexico and back.

Canada became only the second country in the world to fully legalise recreational cannabis use on Wednesday. Mr Chong, who has long campaigned for a change in the law, was invited back to his homeland to celebrate but told reporters on Tuesday he was not sure if he would make it in time because after waylaying his passport.

“It was inevitable, because weed is such a positive medicine for the planet,” he said. “The biggest thing is the change in attitude around it. There was a time where if you went to a cocktail party, and if I wore a weed T-shirt, it was like ‘who invited this guy?’

“Now it’s all changed. The exciting part about it, it’s now presentable. We don’t have to hide. I’m like a walking marijuana information bureau.”

California, where Chong has lived for decades, legalised marijuana itself at the start of 2018.
“I’ve had a taste of pot legalisation, and it’s good,” he told his hometown newspaper the Calgary Herald.
But while about half of American states now allow cannabis for either medical or recreational use, Canada has become only the second nation after Uruguay to fully legalise the drug.

“Canada is the leader,” Chong said.

Chong has first-hand experience of the swift turnaround in authorities’ attitude towards cannabis. In 2003 he was caught up in an US federal crackdown against people selling bongs and other drug paraphanalia over the internet and spent nine months in prison – sharing a cell with the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort.
“They arrested me for transporting water pipes across state lines...I was a POW [prisoner of war] in the war on drugs,” he told the Calgary Herald.
And although Canadians can now light up in any province, the government has warned them against trying to cross the border in the US – which still prohibits marijuana use at the federal level – while high.
Ahead of legalisation day, Canada’s minister for border security, Bill Blair, said: “Frankly if you show up at the border looking like Cheech and Chong, you’re going into secondary [additional inspection].
"But I think for the overwhelming majority of Canadians, they won’t experience a significant change in the way in which the border operates.”
Despite the surge of interest in the ageing pot-lovers after Canada’s legalisation of their favourite pastime, Chong reflected that ultimately the move could spell the end of the stoner duo’s careers.
“I guess [legalisation] is not really good for Cheech and Chong. It’s going to ruin our career. I think we’re going to probably have to retire, or just be an oldies group," he said.

[MGMcAnick]

I've never been a smoker of any kind. I have at least half a dozen close friends and some acquaintances who smoke pot, some of them regularly. I would not be opposed to legalization, but that doesn't mean I'd take up the habit.

That said, one of the things that many states are, and should be, concerned with is the cost of insurance for manufacturing concerns whose workers might be high on the job. Aircraft comes immediately to mind. When I was in that line of work, I can remember security escorting people out the door, forever, when they were discovered to be drunk. Yes each company will set its own rules, but I think the FAA has their own.

[Long Run]

A couple of issues that come up regularly are drug-free work places and impaired driving (as noted above). On the drug-free work place (usually in fields where sobriety is essential), because THC remains in the body's fat for a long time, there is no cost feasible test to differentiate someone who used on the weekend from someone who used that morning. Someone will make a lot of money when they figure out how to do that. On the impaired driving, the police have to go back to the way it was before easy blood testing, and evaluate based on behavior and field sobriety testing. I have not heard if there is a spike in "high" DUI driving, but I would assume that this is one of the things that are being tracked.

[BoSoxGal]

Big RR, I take issue with your characterization of DUI laws as not about safety - the strengthening of DUI legislation nationwide was in response to MADD and has resulted in significant reductions in drunk driving deaths. Yes, the funds from fines are a ‘boon’ to jurisdictions - but they have to police and prosecute DUI offenses, and provide programming to address alcohol addiction, all at no small cost. I’d like to see the evidence of the major DUI revenue stream for municipalities that isn’t tied to equal expenditures for obligations incurred by addressing the issue.

Most states do in fact have statutes that compel blood testing for substances other than alcohol, as DUI prescription drugs or other substances make up a significant percentage of offenses these days. The science of THC blood level determination is fairly complex; I spend hours researching and consulting with our state crime lab for a case I defended in which a mom was being prosecuted for a crash that killed one of her babies because she had a THC and metabolite levels in her tox screen. The crash was due to black ice and her toddler died because she had unfastened the safety harness to her car seat and was ejected from the vehicle. I was able to convince the county attorney that moms THC levels were consistent with having used at some point in days previous, but not with current intoxication. The crusty old county attorney, a reefer madness former military type, would have happily sent my client to prison for the crime of driving on state roads not properly treated for freezing rain conditions.

Montana (one of 18 such states) has now established by law a base level of THC ( 5 ng/mL) that is the equivalent of the .08 legal limit for alcohol; the problem is that just as alcohol metabolism is unique in each individual and rates of impairment are only general rules, metabolism of THC is even less predictably measured. It’s thus a very arbitrary measure. This is why the issue of impairment on the road and on the job in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal for medical and casual use is such a fascinating new area of law, especially where use results in residual evidence in the blood and body tissues for such a long period of time, with levels increasing as the user builds tolerance. A regular medical marijuana user who tests for high levels of THC and metabolite despite a small amount of pre-driving use that causes little actual impairment is likely far less dangerous on the road than the ditzy college student smoking his first fattie before a beer run.

On the subject of impairment - the NHTSA has asserted that the use of cell phones while driving is equally if not MORE impairing than driving under the influence of legal or illegal substances. Given the prevalence of cell phones, if money was the motivation then many more municipalities would be busting people left and right for easily provable cases (officer’s or complainant’s testimony, cell phone use records with timestamps) and raking in the dough. Sadly most are not doing so because taxpayers would complain. It will be a while longer before enough families have lost loved ones over something as stupid as sending a text before public pressure will build to bring harsh criminal punishment to DUI digital device offenders.

[Gob]

This, as far as I can tell, is the cannabis blood level here...

If a driver tests positive for having more than 2µg of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannibinol, or THC (the active compound found in cannabis), per 100ml of blood, then this is considered a positive test, and is likely to lead to prosecution. Police can initially test a swab of saliva or sweat at the roadside, and if a positive test is recorded then the driver will be taken to the police station for an evidential test. The evidential test will consist of a blood sample being taken for analysis.

[Big RR]

BSG---obviously you and I have had very different experiences with the law in this case, but from my view what MADD has done is to take the DUI offender and marginalize him or her, making it an us vs them situation. So we keep dropping the minimum level (in my state it is 0.08, others even lower), force states to raise the drinking age, etc. And the marginalization is why people will accept the draconian penalties and stepped up enfporcement agains "them", but would yell if the same thing applied to cell phone use. Pebalties have soared and people just applaud and say serves them right (at least in public; despite the penalties many states do not permit jury trials because they fear what juries might do). And the gravy train keeps flowing.

Now, I will tel you, I have no great love of drunk drivers; I worked in an emergency room for afew years and saw first hand what they can do; indeed, the first DOA I ever handled was a young (13 year old) girl killed by a guy with a BAI over 28. And enforcement should be stepped up there. But it is much broader than that.

I once had a client who blew a 0.04, but the cop insisted that she failed the roadside test and the prosecutor wouldn't back down. The video showed the cop screaming at her while she was taking the test alonside a busy road; I think most of us would have failed under those circumstances. WE got an expert (his fee was around $1500) and went to trial before the municipal judge, but she was pretty much seen as guilty before it started. So she got a DUI, a 4 month suspension, about $1200 in fines and fees, a mandatory state class for around $500, about $500 to reinstate her license, a $1000 surcharge for 3 years to renew her license, and insurance surcharges for th DUI. All with a 0.04 % BAI; but then, she was one of "them" so people almost cheer it. Yes, we could have gone to the Superior for a review by an SC judge, but the cost was prohibitive for her. So she just contributes to the trough. IMHO, the municpal court system is a pretty piss poor system in which to judge crimes with this sort of penalties (and they are greatly enhanced for repeat offenders), but that's the best way to get the money in.

Yes, there should be an effort to get drunk (and other drug influenced) drivers off the road, but this circus is not the way. Nor is demonizing all people who are charged as people who deserve what they get.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm not suggesting DUI offenders should be demonized, but it's an entirely avoidable offense and it's still all okay with far too many people in our culture - until it's their loved one mangled or dead because someone was too lazy to plan ahead for a way home that didn't include driving under the influence.

Motor vehicles are lethal weapons, and when they are being driven, all of the sober, fully rested driver's attention should be on operation of the vehicle and the road conditions and surrounding traffic. Period. Anybody who chooses to drive under the influence, to drive exhausted or while putting makeup on or eating food or gabbing or texting on the phone or reading (yes, I've seen that on major highways!) DESERVES whatever punishment they get for an open and uncoerced violation of the law.

Maybe I've seen too many accident scene photos of pulverized humans, or had to hug too many bereaved loved ones for whom the criminal conviction of a drunk driver does nothing to repair the destruction wrought in their lives.

Maybe I'm just a jaded bitch anymore.

[ex-khobar Andy]

The test for blood alcohol level is pretty straightforward: it's a gas chromatography (GC) procedure and, once you have the lab equipment and the procedures in place, it's a good quantitative test. If the BAC 'guilty' level is 0.08 mg per 100 mL of blood, and knowing what I do about GC, I reckon it could be measured to plus or minus 10% by most competent technicians. And the science behind the effect is reasonable: although heavy users are almost certainly more able to metabolize alcohol quickly and be affected less, most people have similar effects at similar blood levels. Basic physics (Henry's Law if you want to get specific) relates blood alcohol level to breath alcohol level, so roadside tests give a reasonable correlation with blood levels and therefore possible impairment. That's a general statement: there are many substances which appear to be alcohol to the roadside tests - acetone, which is present in some kidney patients' breath is one - so in most jurisdictions a roadside test is not conclusive.

AFAIK, two things are still missing for a similar approach to weed use. The first is that the correlation between blood level and actual impairment is much less studied and at least when I last looked (I don't have PubMed any more so access to the great bulk of scientific literature is more difficult to get at) wasn't good: one user at 5 ng/mL might be well out of it while another at 5 times that might just be a bit hungry. (And most of who have dipped their feet in that culture probably know that.) Secondly, roadside testing is in its infancy, and most (all??) depend on immunoassay procedures which are notoriously non quantitative.

Where weed use is illegal, then all you need is a presence or absence test - a positive hit = guilt. In other words a qualitative (yes/no) test is fine. But where the use is legal, you need the further evidence that the actual level in the body either does lead to impairment or, more usually (like the BAC of 0.08) indicates measurable impairment in some control group of people. With alcohol, I speculate that most people either blow 0.02 (nothing to see here) or 0.15 or more (obvious impairment) and the occurrence of 0.079 or 0.081 is relatively rare. That reliably quantitative roadside test which indicates impairment to a reasonable level of accuracy is still missing.

[Big RR]

No, you and I have just had very different experiences; and as I said, I have seen the handiwork of drunk drivers far too many times and share some of you outrage. But what I will say is that the guy eating or on his cell phone (or both), the woman putting on makeup while driving, people reading the paper while driving, each and weaving all over the highway at best might get a reckless driving ticket (a fine and points against their license) and would likely get a far lower penalty (often with no points), despite the fact that (s)he was far more of a hazard on the road than my client who blew a 0.04. And I would bet if the cops tried to enforce these laws the same way they do DUI, then people would be up in arms and seeking to stop it. Again, only the "drunk" drivers are singled out, and this is because they have been effectively marginalized/demonized in our society.

A good example came a few years back when our legislature was considering replacing the mandatory license suspension with a requirement to install a breathalyzer/ignition lockout in the car for low levels of intoxication--instead they made the penalty an additional one. IMHO, a person having perhaps one too many (and thus a hazard on the road) would be just as deterred by the car breathalyzer, and might be able to keep his or her job (generally there are no other options for commuting in NJ beyond a car), but the legislature pushed through this draconian penalty and people cheered about teaching "them". I guarantee the public would not have been so supportive if other forms of distracted driving got similar penalties.