Article content continued

“How much does the government really know about growing?” she says. “The people who know the most about the growing, and the plant, and how to care for it, are people who have been criminalized. So now what we’re left with is people who don’t know anything, in suits, and they’re the ones who are benefiting.”

Thurley says she would like someone behind the counter who is knowledgeable about marijuana.

“It doesn’t make sense to bring in a whole host of new hires and set the system out in such a way that people who actually know about cannabis are excluded from the conversation.”

An inferior product could have significant repercussions, Grant says, because dissatisfaction with the government-sanctioned product could fuel more interest in black-market pot.

The price of pot could have similar consequences. The government hasn’t yet said how they plan to price or tax marijuana. “If they don’t make it cheap enough, then people are still going to be buying on the street,” says Serafin. “Is this really going to be helping?”

Because only 40 stores in the province will be open by next year, lack of accessibility will also be a deterrent for some users, Thurley says. If legal weed is both harder and more expensive to purchase, users are more likely to buy illegally.

“Most of (the new stores) will be in the GTA,” he says. “Imagine the kid from Huron County. Are they going to travel an hour and a half to Kitchener or London to pick up legal cannabis? Or are they going to go to the dealer that they’ve always gone to down the street?”

The government has said it will sell marijuana online to people who don’t live near major cities, but that’s still less convenient than a neighbourhood pot dealer, Thurley says.

He adds he would like to the see the government spend more money on cannabis research than on enforcement.

“There are so many opportunities here for the provincial government to do it right,” he says. “I would urge them that there’s no shame in pulling back and saying, you know what, we got this wrong.”