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So as of midnight last night, cannabis is legal in Canada. I mean, it's still going to be heavily restricted in ways that benefit private companies over the public good, and you're not going to be able to get it legally because CUPW, the postal workers' union, is going on strike (perfect timing, solidarity 5ever) but, you know. Legal. Second country in the world and all that.
Do I give a shit? Not really; I barely have time to drink alcohol. What I do care about is what will happen to the people currently in jail for drug offences, the people whose lives have been destroyed, who've lost freedom and livelihoods to prohibition, people who are primarily poor, black, indigenous, or POC, people who can't cough up $600 to have their records expunged, and so on. I wonder what's going to happen to the already exploited migrant farmworkers in Leamington, Ontario, as their bosses switch from labour-intensive tomatoes and fruit to more profitable cannabis cultivation. Will they get deported, discarded as trash by our country yet again? What should their compensation be?
While I believe that all drugs should be legal and addiction treated as a health issue, not a moral/criminal one, I find it very hard to care about this unless the people most adversely affected by prohibition get some measure of justice out of it.
Do I give a shit? Not really; I barely have time to drink alcohol. What I do care about is what will happen to the people currently in jail for drug offences, the people whose lives have been destroyed, who've lost freedom and livelihoods to prohibition, people who are primarily poor, black, indigenous, or POC, people who can't cough up $600 to have their records expunged, and so on. I wonder what's going to happen to the already exploited migrant farmworkers in Leamington, Ontario, as their bosses switch from labour-intensive tomatoes and fruit to more profitable cannabis cultivation. Will they get deported, discarded as trash by our country yet again? What should their compensation be?
While I believe that all drugs should be legal and addiction treated as a health issue, not a moral/criminal one, I find it very hard to care about this unless the people most adversely affected by prohibition get some measure of justice out of it.
