In essence the bill tries to treat cannabis growing and consumption as if it were tobacco or alcohol. Photo / File
In essence the bill tries to treat cannabis growing and consumption as if it were tobacco or alcohol. Photo / File
COMMENT There's nothing like top-down government regulation to take the fun out of things, and the bureaucrats have excelled themselves when it comes to the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill - with the emphasis very firmly on control.
So firmly, in fact, that the bill's provisions, as drafted, are simply unworkable.
Fortunately, unlike the End of Life Choice Act which is also subject to referendum this election, the cannabis bill is not set in stone.
But it does make it difficult to vote "yes" for legalisation when you have to hope the politicians will be wise enough to recognise the draft is a dog in need of considerable overhaul.
In essence the bill tries to treat cannabis growing and consumption as if it were tobacco or alcohol – whereas fundamentally, socially, it's quite distinct. So as drafted, the licensing requirements, particularly around sale and on-premises consumption, are too onerous to make good business sense.
Bruce Bisset
For example, if you're selling cannabis products, you can't sell anything else. There's no advertising allowed, so no real product competition; it's a very passive retail environment.
You can allow people to consume smokefree cannabis products at a premises set up for that purpose, and though (in contradiction to the "nothing else for sale" rule) you must supply food and drink, you cannot also allow alcohol or tobacco to be used there.
Which doesn't sound like a particularly salubrious space to hang about in. Especially as it separates users from the rest of society, making it easy to spot who the druggies are – with all the negative connotations that go with that.
On top of which you have to police people's age and entitlement, both for retail and consumption, plus for the latter be able to make an informed judgement as to whether someone is already "impaired" or not when they seek to buy.
Awkward, at best.
Then there's the suggested "14 grams per person per day" limit. How is any retailer supposed to know if someone's bought cannabis already that day? It's ludicrous.
But there are lots of big sticks waved in the regs for outlets that break point-of-sale rules. Which, again, would tend to put someone off being in the business at all.
On the production side, apart from various quality control rules to, for example, ensure THC potency is kept below 15 per cent, there's a whole new quota system to get your head around; one that limits a given producer's maximum market share to 20 per cent, while also allowing "micro-cultivations" to flourish.
And while it does promise to be skewed toward supporting businesses set up in communities "disproportionately harmed" by cannabis, it may be setting too high a bar in standards for those community businesses to reach.
From a user's perspective, outlawing use in public spaces – like the beach, or the bush, or a mountain-top – even if you're in a vehicle, denies some aspects of the whole point of taking it in the first place: it's a wonderful way to better commune with nature.
And while you might restrict sale to over-20s, trying to stop teens from trying cannabis is like trying to stop water flowing downhill. Better to get real and legislate some proper management – like dropping the age limit to 16 with adult supervision.
In short, this is not so much legalisation as akin to quarantine control. The only genuinely good provision is to allow two plants per person grown at home (or 4 per property) for personal use – including sharing with friends.
Everything else needs to go back to the drawing board – to hopefully re-emerge relaxed and fit for purpose.
