Pubdate: Mon, 26 Sep 2016
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Kelly Egan
Page: A1

Are we ready for neighbourhood sales of pot? Hell no, say worried
parents

Pretty soon, marijuana will officially be wonderful. God help
us.

There was a revealing story in Friday's Citizen by reporter Jacquie
Miller about a marijuana dispensary in Orleans that opened in a
building that also houses a couple of services that cater mostly to
children.

One was a private tutoring centre, the other a martial arts academy.
The soccer moms are anxious. "This is killing me," said one. "We are
terrified," said another, threatening to pull her three children from
the tutoring centre.

What does this kind of passion, this visceral reaction, tell us? It
suggests - as parents, as suburban communities that cherish safety, as
a people spooked by a national fentanyl crisis, as guardians who worry
what our teenagers are up to at night - we are not wholly ready for
this.

Here, evidently, are the groups jittery about marijuana becoming
legally available at an outlet near you: parents, young kids, senior
citizens who never touch the stuff, cranky middle-aged newspaper
hacks, small businessmen who don't want pot shops nearby, the police,
educators and plenty, plenty more.

So, who are we really legalizing marijuana for?

I was noodling through statistics from the Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse. What an eye-opener.

According to a respected national survey done in 2013, eight per cent
of adults 25 and older reported cannabis use in the previous year.
Yes, eight. The rate in 2012 was 8.4, while the figure from 2011 was
6.7 per cent.

If the entire over-15 population is considered, the rate in 2013 was
10.6 per cent.

The rate among the 15-to-24 year-olds was, of course, higher, but not
shockingly so: 24.4 per cent for past-year use, with males twice as
likely to have used.

To recap, as a country we're about to twist ourselves into knots
because eight per cent, or one in 12 Canadians, has used pot - and
maybe only once - in the last year. And of those eight per cent, it
appears a good chunk are young people, males especially, going through
a skater-boy phase.

At a public meeting last week, the idea of "social licence" was
brought up in connection with the siting of the Civic campus of The
Ottawa Hospital.

Well, if only to climb on that pulpit, does the social licence exist
for the federal and provincial governments to go ahead with storefront
cannabis sales anywhere retail sales are now permitted? I would say
the answer is no. The day may come when nobody cares where pot is
sold. That day isn't today.

(The language, too, softens some hard truths. Relax, it's a cannabis
"dispensary" right, all clean and medical, not a drug den?)

Look. I'm perfectly prepared to admit I'm not one of the "cool
columnists" who think Oh Cannabis should be our national anthem. If it
works as medicine, fine, and we should ensure patients get as much pot
as they need, when they need it, at a cost that is affordable.

I'm just not convinced that the state-sponsored sale of recreational
weed is a public good. Look at booze, you say. Yes, indeed, look at
booze.

You know, I was going to make a reference to the numberless "families
touched by addiction" when I caught myself. Families are not "touched"
by addiction, as though it were a feather: they're run over by
addiction, as though it were a freight train.

And does the legalization of another intoxicant - a step taken by
their elders, their betters, their legislators - not suggest to young
people that getting stoned is a perfectly legitimate endeavour? Shut
up, Dad, it's legit now. After legal pot is here, we all know this day
will come: when a group of young people, maybe late teenagers, will
consume legal pot, maybe mix it with a legal amount of alcohol, and
drive the minivan right off a cliff. And we know, too, a good number
of people will be asking this: "Why the hell did we help them do that?"

For now, we live in the Wild West. There are, Miller reports, 15 such
legally dubious dispensaries in Ottawa, about which the police are
taking a "measured approach." Measured? Sure they are. Isn't zero a
number?

The legislation to make marijuana sales legal is due to be introduced
next spring. Until then, why not set up a "dispensary" at 23 Sussex
Dr. or in the Parliament Hill gift shop, or the lobby of the Justice
building?

You're asking moms and kids to walk by it every day. Why don't you?
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MAP posted-by: Matt