There’s another indication that marijuana legalization is going to feel like Prohibition 2.0 for some in B.C.’s thriving cannabis sector.
That’s because the NDP government has revealed that seeds will be included in the list of products being monitored in the federal cannabis tracking system.
‘Additionally, the Liquor Distribution Branch will maintain its own product listing system for any products, including seeds, that it acquires from licensed producers and distributes to public stores, private retail stores, or sells through the online sales system.’
The revelation came in response to questions posed to the province by Deepak Anand. He’s vice president of business development and government relations with a consulting firm called Cannabis Compliance Inc.
In March, Marijuana Business Daily reported that more applications to cultivate medical marijana were refused from B.C. bud producers than from those in any other province.
There’s no word yet on whether the federal or provincial governments intend on destroying cannabis seeds that haven’t been approved under the new regulatory regime.
Seeds have become a hot global issue
In the agriculture industry, Monsanto has come under fire for patenting seeds and trying to corner the market.
Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser fought a lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to the Supreme Court of Canada against the corporation’s demands that he must buy its seeds.
Others who’ve highlighted this issue include Indian GMO critic Vandana Shiva and documentary filmmakers Micha X. Peled (Bitter Seeds) and John Betz and Taggart Siegel (Seed: The Untold Story).
The latter film reported that the growth of agribusinesses and industrial farming companies has led to the disappearance of 94 percent of all seed varieties that existed in the early 20th century.
That included 544 varieties of cabbage, 158 varieties of cauliflower, and 46 varieties of asparagus.
“We don’t think a top-down solution is going to be the answer to global problems,” Betz told the Straight in 2016. “You have to have diversity. Seeds tell us you have to have diversity. The nature of agriculture in our history tells us we need to have diversity.”
Complaints will drive enforcement
Already, concerns have been expressed that the LDB is going to distribute ‘boring weed’ because it’s going to pay exceedingly low wholesale prices for its cannabis.
Meanwhile, Anand has also learned that in B.C., people will have to file complaints to the police for there to be enforcement against cannabis plants being grown in public view.
https://twitter.com/_deepakanand/status/992514556671881216
‘If police find an individual growing plants in view from a public space, they will have the discretion to take a number of enforcement actions ranging from issuing a warning and directing the person to move the plants to where they can be viewed from the public place, issuing a violation ticket, seizing the plants, up to recommending provincial charges,’ the B.C. government stated in response to one of his questions.
In addition, Liquor Control and Licensing Branch officials or a new community safety unit will oversee enforcement of illegal sales from stores, ‘depending on whether the store has a provincial licence or not’.
And in another measure aimed at cracking down on the illegal market, the province intends to ‘monitor the control, sale, production, and movement of cannabis’.
