Judith Stamps July 2013: At a political rally in Kelowna BC Justin Trudeau announces that he is in favour of legalizing and regulating the sale of Cannabis in Canada; cheers all ‘round. October 19, 2015: Trudeau wins a comfortable majority. His platform includes legalizing and regulating cannabis. Activists are cautiously optimistic. Trudeau strives for gender […]
Author: Judith Stamps
More Raids on Dispensaries? What in Tarnation?
Judith Stamps The recent raids on medical cannabis dispensaries in the cities of Nanaimo and Toronto remind us how tenuous is the situation for storefront providers of cannabis medicine. They depend on the charity, good will and enlightened attitudes of city councillors, law enforcement agents, health officials, neighbours, and anyone else with clout. Doctors remain […]
I Wouldn’t Call Them Budtenders – If I Had My Way
Judith Stamps A glance online will tell you that it is too late to eliminate the term ‘budtender’ from the cannabis industry. Definitions are offered in Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary, the Marijuana Glossary, and Merriam Webster. Budtender is a blend of ‘bud’ and ‘bartender.’ The budtender, one reads, is: “the first person that one sees at […]
A Side Trip to the World of LSD: Another Face of Prohibition: And a Recipe
Judith Stamps SOME HISTORY. April 19th is Bicycle Day. On that day, in 1943, Albert Hofmann, a Swiss medical researcher working for the pharmaceutical company, Sandoz, took some LSD, a drug on which he been experimenting. He soon found himself feeling unwell, and decided to return home. He rode his bicycle. As he had taken […]
Cannabis: Where We Are; Where We Might Go
Judith Stamps Legal cannabis will walk onstage in the midst of a crazy scene. But then, maybe all historical periods are crazy scenes. Here are some features of ours. In the 1880’s industrial nations moved from plant-based to chemically based medicines. The transition was hailed as progress, and had, among other effects, a profound influence […]
Cannabis Dispensaries and the Meaning of Civil Disobedience
Judith Stamps If you look at the cover of the May 2016 issue of MacLean’s, you will see a pastiche of cannabis dispensary photos overlapped by a bright yellow circle. In the circle are the phrases: A DRUG DEALER ON EVERY CORNER; ridiculously easy to buy; completely out of control; with the addition of the […]
The Truth About Cannabis: Complexities in Public Discourse
Judith Stamps There is no demon weed, but there are demons that plague our personal and social conversations on cannabis. Here are a few. Eight Logical Fallacies 1. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, called ‘post hoc’ for short. In English: after this, therefore because of this. In real life it looks like this: Oscar used […]
Editors Note – Creative Optimism: The Only Way To Go
Judith Stamps Welcome to Issue 48 of Cannabis Digest. If you have, with any passion, been watching the changes in Canada’s cannabis scene, you will have experienced days of confusion, giddy exuberance, and angst. The landscapers have been at work. Cannabis extracts are legal. Denying patients the right to grow is illegal. Dispensaries are legal […]
Cannabis Plants, Like Cats, Require Minimal Regulation
Be It Resolved That Cannabis Plants, Like Cats, Require Minimum Levels of Regulation, If Any: A Ramble on Regulations Judith Stamps Imagine a group of city planners and cannabis medicine specialists, designing a system for patient access. Because the oldest compassion clubs are, to date, the best available authorities on medical cannabis and community liaison, […]
Liberal Thoughts on Regulations for Cannabis
Judith Stamps Classical liberalism, endemic to North American thinking, is a rights oriented philosophy that blossomed in the 19th century. Its best-known proponent, John Stuart Mill, argued that the good society is one that offers the most extensive personal liberty to all members compatible with everyone having the same. Influential as it was, this outlook […]