{"id":104747,"date":"2017-09-07T08:30:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T12:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/?p=104747"},"modified":"2017-09-15T07:33:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T11:33:50","slug":"entrusting-the-distribution-of-cannabis-to-bureaucrats-gosh-what-a-great-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/entrusting-the-distribution-of-cannabis-to-bureaucrats-gosh-what-a-great-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrusting The Distribution of Cannabis To Bureaucrats&#8230; Gosh, What A Great Idea!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In terms of discoveries of the decade, revolutionary ideas and flashes of genius, let us add the newest one from Sylvain Pag\u00e9, the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Public Health critic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lapresse.ca\/actualites\/politique\/politique-quebecoise\/201709\/05\/01-5130622-marijuana-le-pq-favorable-a-la-creation-dune-societe-detat.php\">who yesterday proposed<\/a> nothing less than entrusting the distribution of cannabis to bureaucrats of the Quebec government!<\/p>\n<p>We had never seen this coming really, even by a mile!<\/p>\n<p>(Note: here, the author feels the need to pause a little and recover from his emotions &#8230; ok, thank you).<\/p>\n<p>Well, let us see more closely how this transcendental vision of public good could materialize.<\/p>\n<p>So : the Parti qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois considers that in order to carry out the responsible distribution of cannabis and to ensure that it is done properly, bureaucrats are best suited for the job.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s then suppose that Premier Philippe Couillard announces the creation of the Department of Pot Enforcement (or, in other words, DOPE).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_104749\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104749\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dope.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-104749 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dope.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"445\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-104749\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is what the newly created Crown corporation business cards would most probably look like.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To make it work, it would take:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A CEO (a former Liberal candidate will do), an executive secretary, three assistants, two secretaries;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Eight vice-presidents (human resources, corporate affairs, business development, legal, prevention, partnership, products and tasting);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>40 directors (by region, product category, distribution network);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>300 executives because executives must have people to manage, and of course 2,000 store clerks (excuse us: advisors);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A wonderful big office in a business tower in Montreal, with regional offices;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A new logo, stationery, an interactive website and a social media campaign;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Offices (including a corner one for the president), computers, furniture, shredder, but also, labs to test and taste the products!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Unions (blue-collar workers, clerical workers, support workers, friendly civil servants &#8230;);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And of course, lots of traveling all over the exotic world of hashish and marijuana culture (Middle East, Southeast Asia, South America &#8230;).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, how much will all that cost? Absolutely nothing because DOPE will add a $ 10 tax per joint of pot sold (which is much less greedy than what the current SAQ asks from wine consumers)! With sales of 10 M of joints annually, the tax will generate annual revenue of $ 100 million!<\/p>\n<p>Then finally, we would go from a system where pot is sold by the organized crime to another where it is sold by a state monopoly. Is there really a difference?<\/p>\n<p>Because with all the taxes that will have to be collected, smokers will of course continue to get their supply from organized crime, as always.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, with such a system, we would be better off staying with the old one &#8230; at least the bandits admit that they are bandits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In terms of discoveries of the decade, revolutionary ideas and flashes of genius, let us add the newest one from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":104897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1742,223,1748],"tags":[997,1017,1327],"class_list":["post-104747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marijuana-eng","category-newsdep","category-politics","tag-cannabis-en","tag-distribution-en","tag-distribution-en-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bureaucrats.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}