As Sir Walter Scott wrote centuries ago: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

It still applies today.

Electoral reform. It was promised by Justin Trudeau as a key campaign pledge, but then abruptly canned.

This one got hostile. NDP MP Nathan Cullen didn’t just accuse Trudeau of deception, he called him a “liar.”

Infrastructure spending. Billions were promised right out of the gate to jumpstart the economy and create thousands of jobs.

By November of last year, however, after being in power for 12 months, the Trudeau Liberals had some 860 infrastructure projects receiving budget approval, but had broken ground on exactly one.

According to Bloomberg News, this abject lack of progress was confirmed by data on Infrastructure Canada’s own website.

Not an auspicious start.

Now it’s the legalization of marijuana, a cock-up from the outset that has given an entire new meaning to reefer madness.

It’s the Wild West out there.

While entrepreneurs invest millions and put out public offerings on companies established to legally manufacture marijuana products once legislation is passed, and go beyond their current medicinal marijuana mandate, innocent lives are being put at risk as illegal pot dispensaries pop up across the country like mushrooms in the dark.

It’s created dangerous times.

As the Sun’s Chris Doucette reported in a major investigation into street-level marijuana enterprises in Toronto, it has now “become a showdown between cops and illegal pot shops — with gun-toting bandits in the middle pulling off weekly heists.”

Staff members at those pot dispensaries have even been pistol-whipped and stabbed during these robberies.

Meanwhile, the cop raids on pot shops continue unabated.

“This is an unusual situation,” Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash told Doucette. “Despite what people in the industry say, there is no grey area. These businesses are operating illegally and not paying taxes.”

Did no one in the Liberal government think this through?

One can almost feel sorry for former Toronto Police chief Bill Blair who, in his second life as Liberal MP, has been assigned by Trudeau to see the legalization of marijuana implemented.

On one hand, he has cops he once commanded coming down hard on the illegal pot industry, while on the other, he has to face the reality that Trudeau obviously had no plan.

It was his election promise, and it is now running amok.

Doucette’s report punctuates that chaos.

Despite Trudeau’s stated intention to move quickly to legislate the recreational use of marijuana, a nine-person panel struck by Health Minister Jane Philpott recently recommended the “go-slow” approach and back off passing legislation to as late as 2019.

Hell, there isn’t even a court-worthy drug-impairment device to detect the level a user is stoned, whether on marijuana or opioids.

This is not good planning.

And then, of course, there is how to keep organized crime out of the game, through tight controls on production and distribution.

As Blair put it: “It’s not like tomatoes.”

At least the Liberals are right about that.

It’s a start.

markbonokoski@gmail.com