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| The author's sativa of #unknown_origins |
Louis Shalako
The legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada has had many effects of a social and economic nature.
Articles have been written on the corporate and government tax revenues, articles have been written on diverting low-level drug crimes out of the correctional system. Articles have been written on the subject of road safety, and whether driving under the influence of cannabis results in a higher incidence of traffic accidents.
Articles have been written noting that cannabis use can reduce the use of opioids in patients suffering chronic pain, for example.
There have been other effects. The old black market model, if we may use the term, was a scarcity model. With over-production, plus a much-modified black market, or grey market, we have gone to an abundance model. That much seems clear.
We have new neighbours in the building. They’re very nice people, very quiet and well-behaved. It struck me that one or the other or both, (and there are more than one family), are employed. At the very least they must have a stable income.
I always like to know who’s who—and who’s what.
It also struck me that there really isn’t a lot of
excess traffic. It hasn’t always been like that. Years ago, folks would come
into the back parking lot and yell up at a third floor balcony. They didn’t
seem to have cell phones, or perhaps the buzzer didn’t work in the front lobby.
And there was a hell of a lot of coming and going—all hours of the night and day, all of them slightly sketchy individuals...some of them known to you, because you see them all over town.
Also years ago, we all had the friend, the friend who had been nickel and diming it all over town for thirty years. Since high school, in other words. And that friend had constant traffic. We know, because we also sat in that basement, with the haze of blue smoke and the six or seven people watching whatever was on the television, and glancing at the clock because rule one was that you had to stay for a minimum of half an hour. That way the cops would never guess, right?
No matter how cool one was, no matter how trustworthy each and every individual was, the plain fact was that everybody in town had heard of some of these characters. It was not a big secret. Especially with six or seven vehicles all packed in the driveway, and people coming and going, and some folks dumb enough to bring a friend, an unfortunate who wasn’t known, and therefore had to sit there in the car looking inconspicuous, and innocent, and all of that sort of thing.
(Let's hope they didn't have to pee. - ed.)
We all had that one (or two, or more) friends who got popped in a vehicle, yeah, with a real smorgasbord of dope, meth, cash, stolen phones, stolen credit cards, pills, coke, and their buddy, both of them already having long records, and they went away for years...years, ladies and gentlemen.
Nowadays, there are probably still a few people dealing out of the front room, the basement or at the kitchen table. They’re in it for the money, just like everyone else…what the basis for competition actually is, is a very good question. They’d have to be getting it pretty cheap somewhere. It would have to be something really special.
With a legal bud shop just around the corner, you know
they are never going to run out, have
a dry spell, or whatever. They’re ordering it by the hundred-weight these days. You can use a debit card...the government website will take your credit card. One thing they will not do is front it to you. I reckon that's a good thing...you're only going to get in so deep.
With the grey market, (I say that because some recent convictions resulted in fines, at a couple of grand, a few grand, nothing like the sentences of some years that might have been handed down back in the day), the prices have fallen on some products. There are still expensive cannabis products, but there is a lot more competition on price. It’s not like your buddy dealer, who had maybe one or two kinds of pot…a bit of hash, and maybe he knew where to get coke. These guys have fifty or a hundred strains. Hash, oil, paraphernalia.
Nowadays, when law enforcement sees the sort of incessant driveway, back-door sort of traffic, all kinds of people of a certain profile, some of whom are known, one way or another, it would seem pretty obvious that something is going on. And it’s not likely to be cannabis sales, although undoubtedly someone in the crowd may be in simple possession of a product, of unknown provenance, and yet it may well have been purchased from a legal source. Nowadays that is perceived as much less serious.
The author is presently growing cannabis on the balcony. They began with seeds, dirt and water, when the temperature seemed warm enough in early June.
There are three plants, two of them pretty big. One is a sativa, heavy with buds and smelling skunky. He’s been doing it for three years, no one has said a thing. The landlord included, but then, the author is not using high-powered lights and some of the other high tech stuff people do in closets, spare bedrooms, or in some cases, filling an entire apartment with a grow op; in fact this particular landlord has had exactly that experience.
Rumour is—an Asian gang, and an organized operation.
As for myself, I appreciate the fact that levels of paranoia about smoking a little pot has (or have -ed), been reduced or eliminated.
Compared to all of the other problems in the world, it really isn’t much of a problem.
END
Louis has books and stories on Smashwords.
Thank you for reading.
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