A long line-up of private business owners are eager to sell recreational marijuana if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau follows through with an election promise to legalize the intoxicant for non-medical use.
Just yesterday, large private drug store chains, such as Shoppers Drug Mart and London Drugs, weighed in to say that they are open to selling the drug.
B.C.’s two main parties, however, are taking a wait-and-see approach to whether they would allow the private sector to cash in on sales.
That contrasts with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who stressed yesterday that sales for recreational pot should be the exclusive purview of government.
“We have made no decisions in regard to anything of that nature,” Mike Farnworth, who is B.C.’s solicitor general and public safety critic, told Business in Vancouver February 25.
“It’s way too early.”
B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake similarly confirmed that his party had not ruled out involving the private sector in legal sales of recreational marijuana should the federal government legalize the product.
“It is too soon to comment on what any proposed framework might look like,” he told BIV in a February 25 statement.
“We will work with the federal government on any particular changes they may make, with an emphasis on protecting children, and working closely with our public health colleagues.
"It will also require a cross-government approach, and we will work in collaboration with our colleagues at the ministries of public safety and solicitor general, agriculture and justice as we move forward.”
Farnworth and NDP finance critic Carole James plan to visit Washington state to conduct a fact-finding mission sometime in the next six weeks, Farnworth said.
The mission would “look at how they have implemented the legalization of marijuana, what has been the upside, the downside, what were the things they expected, what are the unintended consequences,” he said.
His expectation is that at the end of the trip, the party will be in a better position to understand the issues.
Curiously, the trip will be conducted by the NDP’s public safety and finance critics; not its health critic.
Farnworth said not to read too much into that.
“Cost dictates [that only two critics are sufficient],” he said.
“Carole is a former leader and I’m a former health minister so I can bring a health-policy perspective.
