麻豆视频

So much for celebrating Canada Day with a little bit of legal reefer.

Canada鈥檚 Senate will wait until June 7 to vote on whether to legalize recreational marijuana in this country, meaning that pot won鈥檛 be legalized until August or even September.

While some in this country will be disappointed by the delay, it鈥檚 probably not a bad thing. The federal government鈥檚 plan to legalize marijuana has been panned in some circles since it was announced last year, not because people objected to the decision, but because many felt the government was rushing into the move.

After all, Canada doesn鈥檛 have much of a blueprint to follow when it comes to countries that have legalized marijuana (Uruguay is the only one).

There have been questions as of late whether there would be enough marijuana to meet the national demand once it becomes legal.

There鈥檚 no point in complaining about the legalization of marijuana itself. It鈥檚 going to happen. But there鈥檚 plenty of reason to be concerned with the timelines.

The only thing we really know in Estevan is that this city will have one marijuana dispensary, instead of the two that were initially allocated to the city by the provincial government. The city hopes a second retailer can open here at a later date, but that鈥檚 not a guarantee.

Estevan city council arguably went with the least popular option when it chose to have just one retailer. Many wanted to see two, since those dispensaries would create jobs and boost the economy; others didn鈥檛 want to see any, since they鈥檙e opposed to legalization and they wanted the city to take a stand.

Not many were calling for the city to take the middle ground and have just one.

We don鈥檛 know much else about laws for marijuana legalization, which is frustrating for municipalities and law enforcement. We don鈥檛 know what the age of majority will be, where people will legally be able to light up, or how the law enforcement will be able to enforce impaired driving by drug laws.

And so we鈥檙e likely better off with a one-month or a two-month delay.

When the federal Liberals were elected in October 2015, we knew that legalization of marijuana was going to happen. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau not only supported it, he admitted that he had toked in the past.

But there was no need for the Liberals to rush into this plan the way that they have. There was about a 15-month timeframe from when the legalization plan was announced last year, to the initially-proposed legalization date of July 1.

And, of course, the feds offloaded much of the responsibility for legalization to the provincial governments.

It likely would have been just as well if the legalization date had been pushed back to Jan. 1, 2019, or even the start of the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Instead, we鈥檝e seen rushed legislation, a slew of unanswered questions and confusion that has trickled down from the provincial government to municipalities and to law enforcement.

So we shouldn鈥檛 be surprised that the legalization of marijuana is going to take a little bit longer than some would have liked.聽