Treating cannabis as a legal but shameful substance recalls, ironically, the bad old days of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. The Shinybud Cannabis Co. in Smiths Falls, Ont. on Feb 14, 2023.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
A much-quoted line from the television sitcom The Simpsons has the minister’s wife exclaiming during a town debate about Prohibition, “won’t somebody please think of the children?”
The plea is, on the face of it, impossible to argue against. But it’s such an overwrought concern – really more of an attempt to take the wind out of countering arguments – that it’s entered pop culture as a way to accuse someone of clutching their pearls.
Which brings us to Canada’s laws around the display of cannabis. According to the government, the product is safe enough to sell legally but so unsafe – think of the children – that it cannot be seen in the store by minors.
The laws around cannabis display would be illogical, though at least consistently so, if they were on par with those for alcohol or gambling. But they are not. Cannabis laws are stricter in a number of ways. This is hypocritical and makes a mockery of good legislation.
One result is that people selling cannabis can’t use their storefront the way other vendors do. This matters because a nice store window is inviting, attracting customers by blurring the visual line between inside and outside.
It’s true that the law does not specify how cannabis products must be kept out of sight. Larger stores can create a second wall, beyond the door, to meet the rules. But that means forgoing valuable real estate, paying rent for square footage that can’t be used.
For many merchants it’s more logical simply to cover over their windows, even if that undermines neighbourhood vitality. Because an opaque window has the opposite effect of an appealing one. It discourages walking and makes an area less attractive for shopping and lingering.
There’s no reason for the federal government to put cannabis vendors in that position. Particularly when the liquor store, just down the street, can have a big visible display of bottles.
The rules are also different for cannabis in other ways.
Minors can go into liquor stores in Ontario, as long as they’re accompanied by adults. Alcohol ads portray people having a great time. Youth are also bombarded with sports gambling ads on television and the internet, the same as adults. These often depict gambling as sexy and fun.
Meanwhile, minors in Ontario are not allowed to set foot in stores that sell cannabis. A parent running errands that include buying pot must be prepared to leave their child out front. Federal cannabis advertising restrictions prevent it being portrayed in a way that “includes glamour, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk or daring.” If you think the last beer ad you saw would break such a rule you’re probably correct.
Vices can be harmful and rules are needed. Policies such as stores not being able to sell either alcohol or cannabis too close to schools are defensible. So are strict penalties for merchants who flout their responsibility to ensure customers are old enough. These are products for adults, not children.
But, overall, a lighter hand of government is called for when it comes to cannabis.
The best solution would be to bring the rules around cannabis, alcohol and gambling to some logical convergence. That should mean loosening the strictures around cannabis while also tightening those for gambling, as this space has argued before.
Treating cannabis as a legal but shameful substance recalls, ironically, the bad old days of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. In decades past, customers were made to feel semi-furtive and vaguely immoral as they asked for a product and took it away shrouded in a plain bag. That philosophy was wisely abandoned for alcohol retailing, but then recreated when the government drafted cannabis rules.
Legal but shameful may have been a way to blunt criticism in 2018 when cannabis was legalized. But it never made sense.
For all the decades of debate over marijuana policy, society had moved past the controversy by the time the government acted. There’s now more public consumption of cannabis – doing so is legal in four provinces that make up two-thirds of the country’s population – but the impact of legal pot has been pretty muted. Instead of reefer madness, more like reefer mildness.
When it comes to the sight of cannabis, though, merchants are still stuck with laws that assume a glimpse of the demon weed will corrupt Canada’s youth.