Pubdate: Fri, 08 Jul 2016
Source: Penticton Western (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Penticton Western
Contact:  http://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1310
Author: Steve Kidd

JUST RELAX AND TAKE YOUR TIME

I am not good at waiting for things.

Ordering something and then waiting for it to be delivered can cause
deep anxiety, especially since it is so easy to track your package
online now.

Watching as my delivery bounces from warehouse to warehouse, through
customs, brokerage houses and back again - well, let's just say my
nails are pretty short by the time I get that notice my package is
going to be delivered today.

And the less said about Christmas the better. Even the thought of all
those carefully wrapped presents under the tree fills me with near
insatiable curiosity.

It appears that the people who want to sell us marijuana aren't
willing to wait either.

Penticton isn't alone in having a number of storefronts opening up to
sell pot - using a variety of justifications - since now Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party to a come-from-behind
win with the promise to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana as
a major campaign plank.

There were lots of other campaign promises, of course, but
legalization definitely fired up some of Canada's entrepreneurs.

But among all the talk of how much tax money legalization would bring
in and other benefits, like having a much more relaxed population, no
one ever answered the burning question of when this would happen.

It took until the end of June for the government's task force on
legalization to go public, kicking off 60 days of public input to find
out what the country wants.

But our progressive entrepreneurs weren't any more willing to wait for
official legislation than I am willing to carefully unwrap a birthday
present so the wrapping paper can be reused.

Rip and tear, that's me. And our pot vendors are moving just as
quick.

Penticton has four operations dispensing all shapes, sizes and strains
of marijuana, setting the stage for a new type of connoisseur to join
the oenophiles (wine lovers) and cerevisaphiles (beer lovers, or
perhaps, hops heads? Though, maybe that term should be reserved for
our new green connoisseurs).

Nearby Nelson, long famed for it's production of all things green,
already had more than that by Jan. 2016, and now boasts eight.

But the new shops in Penticton are now under various forms of
suspension as the city tries to stamp out the trend.

The city has a point, of course, since storefront sales of marijuana
are still illegal, and it's likely to take the feds quite a while
before they build a framework for sales.

I am hoping that someone in the government has enough of a sense of
humour to schedule the eventual announcement for April 20 of whatever
year, maybe around 4:20 in the afternoon?

But I digress. The problem is that these pot entrepreneurs might have
flown under the radar for a lot longer, if so many of them hadn't
rushed in to answer the undeniable desire on the part of consumers.

One, or two, shops might not have caused so much concern for
officials, as long as they were willing to overlook lineups stretching
down the block.

In the long run most, if not all, of the current shops would have to
be shut down anyways.

After all, the federal task force has a mandate to not just work on
legalization, but also the regulation and restriction of access to
marijuana.

Did you really think the government wasn't going to do their best to
profit from this newly legalized economy?

And never mind the profit on weed, think of how much money there is
going to be made from selling munchies?

- ------------------------------------

Steve Kidd is the senior reporter for the Western News and has never
inhaled.
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MAP posted-by: Matt