The Social and Economic Impacts of Cannabis Legalization. Louis Shalako.

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.

 

 

A List of Our Demands: ODSP/OW Clients of Ontario.

 

Do it.

 

 

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

To that end.

We hereby demand a 2.5 % raise for ODSP/OW, to be committed to in writing by this government. This announcement will be made prior to Oct 1/21. The commitment will be for a term of five years. This raise will take effect Nov 1/21 and remain in effect for five subsequent years, that is to say until the last raise of Nov 1/26, at which time a new rate is to be determined in a timely manner as circumstances dictate. The new rate will be higher.

This government will commit, in writing, and on the front pages of community Canadian journalism, not to claw back any federal benefits including, but not exclusive to, child care programs, income adjustment benefits, including any form of federal basic income benefits, or any form of federal housing benefits for low income Canadians. This includes carbon tax rebates, HST and Trillium Benefits as well as any other federal/provincial subsidy that exists or should take effect.

This government will not exclude this demographic group from any such further social benefits.

We hereby demand this government to commit, in writing, to raising the allowable earnings, to $500.00 per month for ODSP/OW, with a rate of claw-back no more than one third, in other words 33 % on earnings over the allowable income threshold. This government understands that the present rate is fifty percent and shall not be raised by subterfuge or obfuscation.

This government will immediately raise the Work Related Benefit from $100.00/month to $250.00/month for a single adult employed person and proportionately for adults with dependent children. Each and every dependent child or incapacitated adult.

This government will immediately raise all benefits for dependent children, up to and including the age of 25, as presently applied for otherwise inapplicable adults currently living in household and otherwise not covered under existing and otherwise applicable dependents.

We hereby demand that this government commit in writing to continue rent controls as presently constituted, (Sept/21), for a period of 3-5 years; or until such time as the housing crisis has been deemed by parties competent to determine same, has been ended.

We hereby demand that this government shall from this time henceforth, collect, collate, study and determine the ODSP/OW suicide rate, and take all appropriate actions to lessen and mitigate these issues. We expect the government to be sincere in these initiatives. Let this government ‘flatten the curve’.

We hereby demand that this government end the practice of dividing benefits into ‘shelter’ and ‘personal needs’ portions, which do nothing other than place burdens on our most vulnerable citizens. This alone is a recipe for homelessness, as we have repeatedly stated; in our communications to this government. Which so far have been unacknowledged.

We hereby demand a raise in allowable assets as applied to ODSP/OW, this especially applies at the time of original application. We demand a ten percent raise in allowable assets, we also demand that all guidelines applicable be clear, easily understood and easily accessed and searched online and otherwise in an easily-accessible form for those of sight and hearing-impaired status. This should also be available in as many languages as are presently found in this polity, i.e., Ontario, Canada and its environs. This includes roughly three hundred and fifty languages.

We demand that this government recognize the right of the disabled, the mentally ill, or any other marginalized group, person or entity, whether collectively or in their own right, to negotiate on their own behalf, as well as on the behalf of others, for any beneficial or charitable reason, for any reasonable reason whatsoever, and that it shall not prejudice their case, or any other cases, that may be shown to be affected by this and other demands.

This government commits to no reprisals, including any form of bureaucratic or ministerial infringement, interference or undue inquiry when faced with such moral or ethical questions or challenges. The government will honour this commitment.

This government understands and acknowledges that charity is not, and can never be, a substitute for adequate, robustly funded social programs that meet the needs of the target demographic and should never be used to solicit positive, front page publicity without any real impact on the issue at question, a situation that has of late become intolerable to any thinking citizen.

We hereby demand that the allowable gifts in any given benefit period be raised from $7,000.00 to $10,000.00 immediately.

We hereby demand that the guideline or provision allowing any charitable institution, a church, a charity, a benevolent association, thereby allowing them to give a disabled person one million dollars for any reason whatsoever, without penalty to their benefits, be immediately raised to two million dollars.

We hereby demand that the practice of clawing back benefits from spousal parties or otherwise, who choose to co-habit a domicile, be ended and that neither party shall lose any part of their shelter portion, neither their personal needs portion or any other portion, whatsoever, under any circumstance whatsoever. No more claw-backs.

We hereby demand that the mileage rate for business, employment or medical travel be immediately raised ten percent, from $0.40/k to $0.44/k.

This government will commit in writing to initiatives that will reduce stigma, reduce the role of race, bigotry and prejudice, sexual or otherwise, in any social services delivery, including reducing barriers to proper service for those suffering from mental health and addictions issues. This also includes issues of sexual dysphoria.

This government will commit no future funding to community nutritionists, on the front pages of local media outlets, who just want to help poor people make better nutritional choices, when this government knows very well that clients of ODSP/OW have no money for food anyways. Honestly, it’s not even a dollar a day for either demographic group. So why bother.

This government will negotiate in good faith with the one million citizens of Ontario, through their representatives, duly appointed or selected, by God if necessary, but otherwise by democratic and parliamentary means, who, in the past have always been the last to be consulted in regards to their own hopes, their own dreams and their own aspirations, and whose lives, families and fortunes, their very futures have always been sacrificed in the past in the interest of those who could very well have done without such unfair advantages at the expense of their less fortunate friends, neighbours and fellow citizens, and who undoubtedly would have done something about it, if only they could have found the time.

This government will also acknowledge that it understands that it has been put on notice; and that it indeed understands that it has been put on notice; and that it also understands its responsibility to respond in an ethical manner, and even in a timely manner, that reflects credit upon itself and upon the taxpayers and the interested citizens of this province.

This government will clearly state that it has failed, and that it will endeavour to do better in the future in the best interest of this polity.

This government will reinstitute food safety guidelines for food banks and homeless shelters, with a view to preventing abuses of the food safety network, e.g. Grade C eggs donated to food banks, which are not suitable for human consumption but only for further processing. Even though agricultural corporations receive substantial tax credits for same.

This government commits to a program of defunding the food bank industrial complex and de-emphasizing homeless shelters and initiatives in favour of longer term solutions including a mix of co-op, geared-to-income, independent and dependent senior housing solutions, as well as more autonomous housing solutions in those cases where such may be applicable, in a person-based model, which is arguably better than whichever model may have come before, in the opinion of this writer.

Which model did come before? That is to say, if the government, or perhaps the Minister, doesn’t mind one million citizens asking a pretty reasonable question.

 

END

 

 

 

 

ODSP/OW Comfort Food. Stone Soup. by #fritz

 

Served with stolen, or 'foranged' cherry tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Due to the fact that the Province of Ontario has zero intentions of raising disability pensions anytime soon, we are pleased to bring you this age-old, family recipe for Stone Soup.

I come from a Scythian background, thanks very much—

First, you will need to visit your local parking lot and do a bit of foranging. Basically, telling the disabled that they will need to forage for their food can be a bit degrading, a bit dehumanizing, a bit of a genocidal bourgeois fallacy, a statement which debases the speaker even more than the people he, she or it is talking about, but the fact is the English language has long needed a word that rhymes with orange…it just sounds a lot more fun.

Today’s recipe includes purslane, which grows in a base soil, for example cracks in concrete pavement, and which can be found everywhere due to crumbling infrastructure in this post-truth environment. Purslane is good for aches and colds and sore assholes, and pimples on the dink, so don’t be afraid to experiment. We like to give this a good, cold rinse and then a long soak, again in cold water. We do the same with any cannabis leaves we can scrounge, (or scorange), but the fact is that shit is barely smokeable…

Dandelion greens are a hearty, tasty, easily procurable salad vegetable, although you don’t want to use the ones found in a rich Progressive Conservative’s lawn as they are riddled with banned weed-control chemicals. A trace won’t kill you, but it’s not too good for the innards, and you don’t want to turn into a superhero, otherwise you will be wearing capes and leotards for the foreseeable future. It’s all right for the girls, but yeesh, buddy. How friggin’ gay is that. Anyhow, wash the bird-shit off that in the usual way.

The bourgeois idea of how the disabled should live...

This recipe calls for four or five large stones, and while beach stones are the best, nothing beats good old limestone. Honestly, it really doesn’t have to be igneous or metamorphic.

If you’re feeding small children, well!!! Kids just love those colourful little breakfast pebbles already; and who doesn’t enjoy a good day at the beach. Just give ‘em a good wash, to get the bird-shit offa there and place them in the bottom of a pan.

 

Cooking.

Place stones and four cups of cold water, along with any other ingredients, in a saucepan donated from the Inn of the Fucking Goof or any crummy, shitty thrift store, whom, as you know, are working very, very hard to prevent the government from raising ODSP/OW, (disability/welfare). I like to cook them to an internal temperature of 165 degrees per the Ontario Safe Food Handlers Guide. Salt and pepper, season to taste. A bit of margarine will put a slick on there, like Talfourd Creek any day of the week around here.

Meal prep is made easy-peasy!!!

***

Once you get that up to heat, poke holes in the rocks to let out the blood. When the juices run thin and clear, the stones are done. As for storage, (better yet, storange), stones need to be kept in a cool dry place, so a bucket under the kitchen cupboard will do just fine. No refrigeration required, and sometimes that is a good thing.

As you can see, even a single guy like me can make enough for leftovers.

Leftovers is good, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s time to eat. Try not to look like you’re enjoying it too much, hungry as hell as you must be by this point, i.e., the second or third day of the month after cheque day. If you are on ODSP and you’re not suffering enough, the middle class figures they are getting #ripped_off .

Next week: Cock Soup, which is actually just a dead rooster.

Although almost any dead bird from the side of the road will do.

Honestly, it’s not a cock. Not a real one, anyways.

Which give us something in common with the Minister, who, in my own impression, probably hasn’t seen a real cock in years. 

Which seems a bit odd, as she’s not a bad-looking lady.

 

#fritz

 

Fuck that, I'm outa here... #da_Rooster