The False Equivalency Factor: Canada’s Cannabis Purchase & Possession Limits Are A Recipe For Confusion
All you have too understand is that there are no Possession Limits when buying licensed cannabis online, as opposed too physically buying and walking out of a retail store with more then the equivalency of 30 grams, because buying online you take no possession until it arrives by Post at your private residence. I have said all along Government sanctioned regulations will drown the stockmarket retail, here is the stupidity of Cannabis in Canada.
The answer is that each listing represents the maximum legal purchase and public possession amount for each product. That’s right. That’s the most you can carry on your person and stay within the bounds of the law. It’s also the most that you can buy at any one time at a cannabis retail store. Try to buy a six-pack of cans of Houseplant sparkling water and the budtender will turn you down flat. Five-packs are fine though! Or, if you are really feeling it, grab 1,000 packs of dissolvable powder!
The cannabis law treats seven hash joints, 23 jars of salve, 30 grams of flower, 30 seeds, 1,000 packs of powder and 6,420 capsules exactly the same way. Never mind that the amount of THC in each is wildly different. Never mind that the ability to accidentally (or purposefully) take too much is wildly different. If you have 31 grams of flower in your pocket you could be arrested. If you have six-pack of cans of mild drink, you are a criminal! But fill your boots – literally – with capsules or powder.
What a mess.
Why This Matters It would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious. Obviously, the primary concern is turning people into criminals for no good reason. That’s unconscionable.
There are other negatives for retailers and consumers. For help understanding those issues, I asked Andrea Dobbs, co-founder of the Vancouver cannabis retail store The Village Bloomery: “It puts us in a very awkward situation. People travel to come see us and when they are told they’ve ‘reached their limit’ on a product that is inert like a bath bomb, they’re aghast. This has happened often enough that we printed up a card that invites them to write to the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and copy us to express their frustration.”
I love the advocacy, but the real culprit here isn’t the BCLDB (though pressuring them will also pressure the federal government so keep on doing it). The whole mess exists because we treat cannabis very differently from other legal products by imposing a 30-gram possession limit and making it a crime to exceed it. That’s ludicrous.
Why This Matters It would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious. Obviously, the primary concern is turning people into criminals for no good reason. That’s unconscionable.
There are other negatives for retailers and consumers. For help understanding those issues, I asked Andrea Dobbs, co-founder of the Vancouver cannabis retail store The Village Bloomery: “It puts us in a very awkward situation. People travel to come see us and when they are told they’ve ‘reached their limit’ on a product that is inert like a bath bomb, they’re aghast. This has happened often enough that we printed up a card that invites them to write to the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and copy us to express their frustration.”
I love the advocacy, but the real culprit here isn’t the BCLDB (though pressuring them will also pressure the federal government so keep on doing it). The whole mess exists because we treat cannabis very differently from other legal products by imposing a 30-gram possession limit and making it a crime to exceed it. That’s ludicrous.
The Equivalency Factor: ‘Just A Lot Of Head Shaking’ Other products get caught up in the mess because of a little something called the “Equivalency Factor.” This is an imaginary number meant to represent the relationship between a non-flower product and a gram of dried cannabis (see section 2(4) of the Cannabis Act, and schedule 3). The Equivalency Factor is calculated based on weight of the product and is different for different product categories. It isn’t related to THC – the primary active ingredient – at all.
That’s why you can buy lots of powdered THC, but very few 12oz cans, even though the powder is meant to be dissolved into a drink. It’s also why you can buy 42 of one type of chocolate bar but only 14 of another, even though each package contains exactly the same amount of THC – one company just has a bigger chocolate bar and so you reach your weight limit on those much more rapidly.
Andrea made clear that consumers understand how silly the equivalency factor is. “We get frustrated when we have to try to explain the equivalencies because everyone in the room understands that weight or volume has nothing to do with potency. There is just a lot of head shaking.”
Somebody needs to give their head a shake, that’s for sure.
As you can see, none of this makes any sense, and as such, it leads to absolutely nonsensical outcomes. It infantilizes consumers. And it is completely, totally, incredibly arbitrary. Now I’m no lawyer, but I once read that an arbitrary law that imposes criminal consequences on people violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I doubt we ever see anybody charged for having six cans instead of five, but consumers and retailers are justifiably upset about having to follow these silly rules.
Frankly, I think it demeans the integrity of the entire system to have such nonsense like the equivalency factor on the books. Andrea agrees: “This situation creates more distrust between government agencies and cannabis producers, retailers, and consumers. When their approach isn’t logical, we all suffer.”
The good news is that we are still in the infancy of legal cannabis, and the entire system is slated for a review in October 2021. A key outcome of that review must be getting rid of the limits on what people can buy and possess legally. We need to start treating cannabis the same way we treat other legal products.
Once that happens, all these absurd false equivalencies will disappear.
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