Cannabis is legal again?

Canadians are calling it legalization but after reading over the many new laws coming into effect today it appears that Canada is still criminalizing cannabis users by adding dozens of new regulations that may negatively impact lives.

For people who regularly smoke and drive it looks like Ontario has taken a cookie cutter approach and revised the alcohol laws and just replaced the word alcohol with cannabis – even though alcohol and cannabis are completely different substances with no similarities in effects.

Extreme cannabis “impairment” if we can call it that, would either be sleepiness or in some cases, severe anxiety.

If anything cannabis users are probably more careful on the roads than anyone and unless they are a new to THC, have posed no serious threat.

If anyone has any doubts, the statistics from Colorado where weed is legal show no increase in car accidents, or crime.

Despite those facts, regular cannabis users can expect to someday be pulled over by OPP and asked to take a saliva test, even though THC can remain in your system for as long as thirty days.

Did you know that cannabis has been legal by Canadian law since 2001 for medical users? The Human rights code protects users with disabilities who use medical cannabis.

Ontario Human Rights says that medical cannabis users should be able to smoke or ingest cannabis products at work as long as the user can function safely and do their jobs properly.

How will officers, employers and neighbours be able to differentiate between the recreational users and the medical ones?

Long-time Canadian pot advocate Kyle “Dabfarm” Morrison has been quoted saying “all use is therapeutic use,” defying the definitions of recreational and medical user.

It will probably be a few years before the negative stigma and stereotypes that follow cannabis finally die down.

Some Six Nations residents have had luke-warm feelings about the so-called legalization. One commenter on Facebook suggested that the focus should be on policing other drugs. “Who cares about weed, people are dying from percocets and oxy’s everyday and it seems like no one cares,” she said in a thread about weed legalization on Six Nations.

After attending a SNEC presentation by the community team, I think they are mistaken about the origins of cannabis.

Although some strains did in fact originate from Asia, there are several landrace strains from the Americas such as Acapulco Gold and Columbian Gold that have been cultivated here for thousands of years.

I think the real question is: Did our ancestors have access to these seeds? Did our ancestors have ancient cannabis?

This weeks centrespread poster if for all of those who have been locked up for years because of a plant that is now “legal”.

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