Nothing personal at all, sorry if I come on too strong. My wife was denied medical cannabis as a youth that could have shrank or cured her tumors, instead is crippled from the radiation and surgeries. Cannabis now keeps her cancer free and deals with the chronic pain. For me, I have an undiagnosed neurological disorder like MS, and PTSD, both of which are in remission because of cannabis. We fought "legalization" for several years before Trudeau was selected to "legalize" it, and warned that it would be a corporate monopoly but were called crazy for it. When it happened, a lot of people said "yeah I knew this would happen". She and I were at the heart of it in downtown Vancouver in the courts and streets and dispensary lounges, trying to spread awareness.
We had a cannabis modeling project online that was destroyed by legalization (ie by prohibition 2.0), and a successful extract business that couldn't launch because "legalization" didn't actually legalize anything we did, it just overregulated it and pushed out anyone except a few elites and their buddies. Both our families shunned us for cannabis and activism, and even now that it's "legal" have not apologized for demonizing us over something for its legal status. Just as the government did not apologize for demonizing and jailing us for decades for something that now is "legal" (but only for them to produce and sell). "Legalization" made the medical market in Canada illegal, so patients are now forced onto the recreational market, buying poor quality irradiated dead cannabis with little medicinal value for five times the going price.
We started and ran a free grassroots cannabis farmers market on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver for 2 and a half years, only ended by the beating and arrest of several activists, bakers, and vendors, just before "legalization". My wife was the last arrested, and jailed 24h, given a charge of obstruction which she fought in court and had dropped. A lot of patients lost their source of quality cannabis edibles when that market went down, a lot of people died of opiate overdoses that didn't have to, a good and healing community was destroyed... to make way for "legalization". You can't have people doing something safely at a farmers market that you claim is dangerous and requiring heavy government oversight and regulation.
I predicted in October 2018 (day one of "legalization") that our failed model would be called a success by the media, and then exported to the rest of the world as the model to emulate. And here we are. They're calling it a trillion dollar a year market. But the market was always there, it just wasn't within the state's control. They haven't created jobs, they've stolen them from the free market at gunpoint. People are still rotting in prisons here for growing and selling cannabis. Legalization was a complete lie, and it directly impacted and continues to impact the lives of my wife and I. We've given a decade of our lives to trying to raise awareness about this, against heavy resistance, and now we see people cheering for "legalization" at all costs, just like Canada was back in 2012-2017. It's a trap! So there's no way I can hold my tongue and I do apologize for that, but at least now you know why! Have a great weekend.