Pubdate: Thu, 09 Mar 2017
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Derek Sanderson
Page: A11

ONLY LICENSED PRODUCERS SHOULD SELL POT

My company is cleared by Ottawa to consult with licensed marijuana
producers going through the very restrictive licensing process, which
requires more than 170 detailed operating procedures and risk assessment.

With more than 800 application rejections in 2016 alone, there are no
shortcuts with the regulations/safety of legal marijuana.

Health Canada is leading this, and when multimillion-dollar licensed
producers are involved with one pesticide issue, they're shut down.
That's how tight these regulations are.

Victoria's dispensaries: Where's the dope coming from and how is it
grown?

It is an embarrassment to see our city leadership running around
trying to "regulate" something that Ottawa, the prime minister and law
enforcement say is illegal and unsafe.

This has brought home-growers to sell their 25-pound hockey bags of
pesticide-ridden green garbage to dispensaries, and everyone is
running to the "compassionate" drive for access to medicinal
requirements. Licensed producers only should be dispensing this.

Why would Ottawa require more than $1 million of work from a licensed
producer, only to let "Basement Bob" flog his crap on every corner of
our city?

If people cannot access their legal prescriptions through licensed
producers, they aren't governing their prescription-management well.
People brewing moonshine cannot sell to the public; it's same with
this scenario.

I refer Mayor Lisa Helps to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. You
don't manage a great destination like ours by "allowing it because it
will just re-open." It is illegal, it is unsafe and is increasing crime.

Derek Sanderson

Island IT Victoria
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MAP posted-by: Matt