Bloc Pot, Quebecs pro-pot political party, says the fight is far from over despite federal plans to legalize weed. Now more than ever, we need a unified voice, and we need to be even more demanding, party spokesperson Hugo St-Onge said.
The party will release a statement on September 5 lobbying the Quebec government to put pressure on their federal counterparts to pull cannabis from federal handsand therefore criminal lawand surrender the issue entirely to Quebecs jurisdiction. Everyone is accepting peanuts because thats what the federal government is offering. We want more. We dont want people in prison anymore. St-Onge said.
According to St-Onge, cannabis should be a provincial responsibility because it is a local market and economy, and an issue of agricultural development and health. Moreover, he believes that the framework proposed by Trudeaus government, which keeps cannabis in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Actan exercise of criminal law power under federal jurisdictionis typical of the governments sustained war against the people who enjoy, sell and produce cannabis. He estimates that Quebec is home to one million cannabis amateurspeople who enjoy cannabis or partake in the cannabis industry.
He said that other than corporate medical marijuana outfits, cannabis amateurs have been completely excluded from discussions. Bloc Pot was not invited to an experts forum held in June in Montreals Palais de Congrs, where medical and legal professionals spoke about how legalization would affect areas such as road and workplace safety, consumption, taxation, contraband, medical and recreational use, and health aspects and prevention.
St-Onge added that he believes the current federal framework will just facilitate a new type of persecution, pointing to the fact that it outlines plans for even more severe criminal penalties written into law. For example, the maximum sentence for dealing cannabis to a minor is being upped to 14 years.
Cannabis lawyer Kirk Tousaw said that while the federal government could surrender jurisdiction to the provinces from a legal and jurisdictional perspective, whether it is feasible from a political perspective is a different story. He added that Bloc Pot is not alone in its request. Theres lot of people across the country who are advocating for regulatory sanctions, not jail or criminal sanctions, for cannabis violations.
Tousaw added that while the idea that [cannabis] should be a non-criminal offense has a lot of attractiveness and makes a lot of sense, the current political and regulatory framework emphasises control and regulatory power over the civil liberties and freedom arguments for legalization.
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