TORONTO - Ontario has blamed a shortage of legal cannabis from the federal government for its slow rollout of retail outlets, a claim dismissed by the federal government and regulatory bodies from other provinces, raising prospects the black market for weed may thrive longer in Canada’s most populous province.
While the provinces can set their own cannabis guidelines, a provincially run distributor purchases the cannabis from federally licensed producers, and then allocates it to retail locations approved by the province. But the federal government has pushed back on this assertion, as have industry analysts and regulatory bodies in other provinces.
Jay Rosenthal, co-founder and president of the research company Business of Cannabis, said Ontario’s slow retail start leaves room for illegal weed sales.A major gap he sees is retail. Ontario has just one legal retail cannabis store per 200,000 people, compared with Alberta’s one store for every 28,000 people.
In the aftermath of this short-notice policy switch, Rosenthal said, “The supply shortage is an easy scapegoat.”
This is the same reason fake ass 'Churches' still persist in California. Draconian laws, extreme taxation, slow roll outs and we still have a massive underground weed business thriving here in SoCal when it should all be on the up and up by now.