Canadian Expert: Allow Small-Scale Businesses Into Rec Industry

The Canadian medical cannabis industry, while legal at the federal level, is essentially dominated by a handful of nationally sanctioned large companies.

As the Canadian government prepares legislation to legalize adult use-cannabis next year, a drug expert has proclaimed it should allow a variety of independent, unlicensed small-scale growers and dispensaries that are currently illegal to participate in the emerging recreational market.

If the Canadian Parliament takes the advice of Prof. Neil Boyd, a lecturer at Simon Fraser University and a co-author of a report that the nation’s Drug Policy Coalition is handing over to a Canadian task force this week, then it’ll open up the potential rec marijuana industry to smaller players that will make the market more competitive, according to the Globe and Mail.

According to Boyd’s research, keeping the industry restricted to a small number of players will only give further life to the black market. Only 5% of illegal marijuana grow cases had any ties at all to organized crime, according to the article.

Extrapolate that, Boyd said, and the vast majority of those involved in the underground cannabis trade “are non-violent and do not commit any other crimes,” the Globe and Mail reported. Recent estimates suggest there are an estimated 350 illegal dispensary storefronts in the country.