BY THIS TIME NEXT WEEK, we’ll all be smoking pot.
Or at least, we’ll be able to smoke pot legally, trusting of course that there are no underagers in the audience.
Hey, there’s a first time for everything.
There is reason for concern about what happens on October 17, but it’s not the kind of concern that stems from reefer madness-type hysteria.
The evidence that many more people will be using cannabis once it is legal is still unconvincing.
We all know that those who had a taste for contraband up until now could and would use it, with the legal recourse being rare and minimal for casual users.
The hitch, ironically enough, is the legal recourse after October 17, not before.
So many questions around legalities remain unanswered, less than a week away from a government cannabis store opening right out in the open, right beside Save-On Foods.
What happens to those with prior convictions, for example, as Mel Rothenburger asked earlier this week?
What happens to drivers who are pulled over and may be or may not be impaired?
Do we even know what constitutes a pot-impaired driver, and if there is any ambiguity, won’t every ticket or charge be vulnerable to a stringent court challenge?
And the biggest questions may be with Canadians’ freedom to travel.
The United States now says it won’t ban those who work in the legal marijuana industry from entering the country, but the question still remains about users.
It doesn’t matter if you’re crossing from Canada into a legal weed state like Washington; border guards don’t work for the state.
They work for the federal government.
Your two options as a cannabis user are either lying to the border agent – which is not a good idea – or risk getting turned around and told to beat it.
Canadians can apply for waivers to enter the U.S. after they have been banned, but many may consider it completely not worth the effort.
Recreational cannabis use itself isn’t nearly as frightening as some critics make it out to be, but the legalization process has been unclear.
And hazy in a legal context is a little more serious than hazy as a state of consciousness.
