when we started this process, i didn't really care who sold the stuff. i'm approaching this entirely from the perspective of liberalizing access. i don't care about keeping it away from kids (kids will smoke if they want to), about shutting down criminal sellers (i know that this is mostly based around lies) or ensuring a safe product (unlike the kinds of drugs that are synthesized in the bathroom sink, weed is actually rarely tampered with and easy to find in a pure state). but, if the government insisted on selling it as a monopoly, whatever...

as time has gone on, and the process has unfolded, the government has demonstrated itself as too right-wing to do this effectively. i want to be clear: it's not that i don't think government, as an abstract, can do this well. it's that i don't think that this particular, right-of-center government can do this well, because it's approaching the issue from the viewpoints of all of these conservative value systems, rather than the simple task of liberalizing access. doing this right would require a much more liberal government with a very different set of priorities.

as such, i'm agreeing with the market institute, but only as a consequence of the circumstances: i don't necessarily think that the market ought to be able to do this better, but i think the market will do this better than this government, which just wants to pander to the right at the expense of liberalizing access.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/privatize-marijuana-sales-to-avoid-conflict-of-interest-between-public-health-and-profit-c-d-howe-says-in-letter-to-bill-blair/wcm/881ab02c-fbc3-4fc0-8e40-ecef67054fd0