A piece of dried cauliflower, or broccoli or beet in an opaque white bag with a stop sign and a written warning affixed — that’s a weed edible in the Canadian province of Quebec, where any marijuana products resembling candy, chocolate, chips or any food that may appeal to children are outlawed.
“Lately there’s been [cannabis-infused] sausages,” said François Gagnon, a senior researcher at the Canadian Center on Substance use and Addiction.
Quebec has some of the strictest regulations on cannabis sales and products of anywhere in North America that has legalized the substance. That includes regulations on packaging, dosing and advertising. All dispensaries are operated by the provincial government, not entirely dissimilar from Pennsylvania liquor stores.
At a Pennsylvania House Health subcommittee hearing Thursday, both Canadian and American public health experts praised Quebec’s regulation. They said other American states that rushed into legalization saw increases of calls to poison control and ER visits, cannabis related DUIs, upticks of excessive use, and more. In particular, the experts urged lawmakers to consider a state-run dispensary system, much like how liquor is currently sold.
“If you do it wrong, it can take as long to untangle as the harms of the tobacco industry,” said Dr. Lynn Silver, a senior advisor at the public health institute. “If you do it more carefully and do it right, I believe it can help you assure a healthier and more just future for your children.”
While it’s unclear what legalization legislation might look like, cannabis industry groups and lobbyists are already pushing back.
“We have an existing network of [medical marijuana] businesses that already have invested a lot of capital, and already have really knowledgeable, highly trained employees,” said Meredith Buettner, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition. “I think additionally with a private system, you give folks in the equity space the opportunity to enter the market.”
Buettner was referring to policies previously probed by the subcommittee exploring legalization that would allow for a limited number of private dispensaries with social equity licenses offered to business owners from minority communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.
Pa. House subcommittee explores adding equity component to potential cannabis legislation
But the public health experts who testified on Thursday said that confining legal cannabis sales to state-operated stores would help crackdown on unlicensed dispensaries, which have become a major problem in some states that have legalized marijuana and allowed the sale at private retail stores. Moreover, it would allow the state more control over the products dispensaries sell and how they’re displayed.
“You can strongly limit aggressive advertising and marketing in a way that is difficult under current commercial speech jurisprudence in the United States,” said Silver. “You can better shape a safer cannabis supply of less potent products not designed to attract children and youth”
In exploring the potential for state-owned dispensaries, lawmakers brought in Rodrigo Diaz, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which oversees the sale of liquor throughout the commonwealth.
Diaz said that revenue from liquor stores goes to funding law enforcement and addiction services, and a similar tack could be used with cannabis sales. However, Diaz refused to make policy recommendations to lawmakers, and when questioned about the practicality of selling cannabis in the state’s liquor stores, he deferred to lawmakers.
“We will do what the legislature tells us to do,” Diaz said when asked for his thoughts on specific policies.
Because marijuana is still federally illegal, selling it can be complicated. As a Schedule I drug, dispensaries selling cannabis require many security features not currently in liquor stores. Credit cards are generally not accepted at dispensaries because of federal banking regulations.
“I’m not sure where $580 million are going to come to get your stores ready to sell this product,” said Rep. Tim Twardzik (R-Schuylkill). “It just doesn’t seem to fit the stores.”
Buettner, who represents a number of cannabis stores, including some of the biggest sellers in the country, said that opening state-run stores would be far more complicated in Pennsylvania than Quebec given the status of federal regulation.
“I think it’s a little peculiar that we’re spending time looking at another country’s model when our federal laws are so different than the laws in Canada,” Buettner said.
To this point, Rep. Paul Schemel (R-Franklin) noted that in order to have public stores, the state would have to ask its own employees to sell a product that’s still federally illegal.
Public health experts also recommended other policies for Pennsylvania to consider. They turned again to Quebec, which also has laws limiting THC levels in all products to 30%. In many states where it’s currently legal, recreational products regularly have THC levels of 75% and above. Quebec also bans vapes with artificial flavors and edibles can’t have shapes that make them more attractive to children.
Regulations ‘in support of consumers’
According to David Hammond, a University Research chair at the University of Waterloo school of public health in Canada, polls have shown a majority of Quebecers approve of the regulations
“Some folks consider restrictions as being sort of anti-consumer,” said Hammond. “In fact, there are some regulations that are very much in support of consumers. And I would suggest that packaging and labeling are one of those.”
He noted that Quebec sees fewer accidental marijuana overdoses than other places with legal cannabis, which he attributed to sometimes confusing packaging of American products, and small edibles frequently containing large amounts of THC.
Hammond also noted that Quebec saw one of the smallest rises in reported cannabis use among its population after legalization, which he saw as a sign of success
While discussing Quebec’s placement of stores, Hammond said, “there’s a debate about having enough stores so that you’d displace the illegal market. But if you have too many stores, you might start to promote consumption.”
Perhaps most importantly to Silver, the public health expert from California, state-operated stores would limit the political influence of the cannabis industry when it comes to crafting regulation down the road. She held California and other states up as examples of places that have struggled to regulate cannabis after passing legalization, in large part because of the industry’s lobbying force.
“We have many states that have taken one or more positive steps, but most of them are doing that in the context of simultaneously building this increasingly-powerful, for-profit industry that makes it much more difficult,” Silver said. “I think the only way you can avoid bad outcomes if you are legalizing is to create a very different type of system, right from the beginning, as Quebec did.”
Buettner disagreed, and says her organization supports many of the regulations experts have recommended.
“As a representative of the industry, I feel very confident in saying that we share those [health] concerns,” Buettner said. “We support regulations that make sure stuff’s not marketed to children. We support childproof containers. We’re supportive of all of that. I think there is a way to do it that protects kids, protects public health, but also allows business to flourish.”
H/T: www.yahoo.com
