Meanwhile cannabis beverages are required to have:
-Nutrition facts including calories, sugar, etc.
-Gigantic yellow warning with random health warning (e.g., don't use if pregnant)
-Huge red stop sign cannabis leaf logo
-KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
-Big pain in the ass plastic childproof thing
None of these required on a can of beer.
From a harm reduction perspective, it's a massive failure. Many cannabis beverages have very low nearly zero calories, sugar-free. For your physical health they are almost certainly less harmful than alcohol and I know many people would enjoy them as an alternative to alcohol.
We have faced a similar failure in harm reduction strategy regarding vaping versus tobacco. I think in both cases it's a result of vested interests (tax revenue, lobbying, don't know) trumping what is best for people.
To who? Because we're still the only country with it fully legalized for recreational use. I fail to see how that's embarrassing at all.
We used to have weird rules on alcohol too, and just like those, cannabis rules have been getting better as time has gone on. You can't expect a world first system to be perfect right out of the gate.
I don't personally enjoy or buy cannabis, I don't have knowledge on policy or a horse in the race one way or the other, so I'm curious - could you let me know & anyone who might be interested, how legalization has been an embarrassment in Canada? What do you specifically take issue with in the Cannabis Act?
This is what happens when you have a large segment of the population that is both opposed to something, and not terribly against acting in bad faith. You get poison pills in your regulations.
Taxes are too high, rules for storage actively ruin the products. It really didn’t do much to stop illicit sales; most people I know that didn’t start smoking when it became illegal never buy from the dispensary. They did a terrible job of handing out liscensing, and most of the people who got them were just rich people making an investment(and lots of them had previously supported prohibition because they are also involved in alcohol sales) instead of working with non violent offenders to help them transition. And the edibles and drinkables people are talking about are so bad because the government made arbitrary THC limits.
Health Canada has also made some ridiculous limitations. They are the reason all the warning labels have to be on everything, and why packaging is so bad that it ruins the buds. They also established some very restrictive rules regarding edibles and extracts. A 10mg limit for edibles is crazy and one of the big reasons that black market edibles are so popular.
To me the worst part is allowing at parks, so now myself or young kids have to experience the stench of some asshat not caring about fellow citizens and they recreation time.
Cannabis, unlike alcohol and tobacco, has a high chance of causing long term and devastating effects on youth. This is a fact proven by science. Ease of access to alcohol should be heavily reduced and warnings should be places on them, Conservative ran alcohol lobbies always block that idea.
Vaping has been scientifically proven to be just as bad, if not worse for you health not to mention the negative environmental factor. It should follow the same path as tobaccos; no branding, no labels, health warning, removal of flavors, fines for vaping in public spaces.
Surprised to hear someone so confidently asserting that more prohibition is necessary. None of what you suggested really aligns with harm reduction and I would argue that more restrictions on vaping and on alcohol would backfire in terms of black market availability and less regulatory oversight.
And for the record, typically how it works when you want to make a claim about proof and evidence is that you cite your sources. You can't simply use hyperbolic language, wave your hands and say the magic word "science" and expect people to just believe you.