Trudeau's arresting choice on legalized marijuana

James Mennie,

If the Liberals succeed in legalizing marijuana, an estimated 1.2 million Canadians could eventually use legal variants of the drug daily – and perhaps another 2.5 million will consume them occasionally. With that kind of revenue potential, you need someone who understands the market from the inside. Jeff Chiu / AP File Photo

In an interview conducted with the Toronto Star soon after he was named the Trudeau government’s point man on the proposed legalization of marijuana, Liberal M.P. Bill Blair was asked the obvious question and provided a succinct, straight up reply.

No. He had never smoked weed and in fact had never consumed any illegal drug, despite having had plenty of opportunities to do so over the course of his previous career.

The former chief of police of Toronto (and perceived nemesis of then mayor Rob Ford, whose stand on the consumption of illegal drugs is a matter of international record), Blair said his dad was a cop and while growing up he didn’t want to disrespect his father’s values.

And Blair added that even after he, too, became a police officer and wound up working on the force’s drug squad, he simply never had the urge to sample any of the wares sold by the people he was trying to arrest, merchandise he routinely purchased in quantity while working undercover.

And at this point you can be forgiven for perceiving a certain surreality in that exchange and indeed in Blair’s nomination, if only because – and despite Blair’s candour – there seems a certain contradiction in assigning the eventual sale and distribution of Canada’s (still illegal) recreational drug of choice to a man who’s spent most of his adult life trying to blow up the existing business model that makes it available.

Granted, police chiefs across the country have expressed their doubts about the viability of suppressing the consumption of a drug only slightly less present in Canadian life than coffee and doughnuts.

And at first glance it would seem that appointing a career police officer to oversee the legalization of marijuana was part of the Trudeau government’s dubious spin that no, this wasn’t an attempt by Ottawa to add an important revenue stream to its coffers by taking marijuana out of the hands of criminals and putting in the hands of bureaucrats, but rather a clever and morally laudable means of funding rehab programs and addiction research.

Indeed, Trudeau raised a few more eyebrows than usual when he speculated that legalizing marijuana would not create a cash cow for the government and that the drive to bring weed into the legitimate mainstream was always about public health.

Yet there’s a suggestion in the Toronto Star’s interview with Blair that even if the Liberals’ legalization project is fronted by concerns over how much we inhale, there is also a recognition that the legitimate sale of marijuana will spark a public demand that will need to be met with an effective distribution and control system.

And implicit in Blair’s observation that existing provincial liquor store outlets could be practical sales points – if only to ensure weed is kept out of the hands of minors – is the suggestion that the years he spent trying to undermine the drug trade has provided him (and any other narcotics cop) with a thoroughgoing understanding of how to set one up.

Think about it. The only group of individuals in this country as well versed in marijuana sales techniques as the criminals using them are the cops trying to bust them. Surveillance, infiltration, tracking of shipments, supply, demand, pricing and distribution – apart from the last chapter of the process, where a group of heavily armed individuals swinging a battering ram and screaming “POLICE” cave in the door to the head office – being a narc is a bit like to going to business school (albeit with a more relaxed dress code).

Bill Blair has graduated from that school and will bring a lifetime of experience to his new assignment, experience I’m sure can’t be matched by any government briefing note.

And I suspect that, most importantly, Blair will bring an appreciation of how carefully the Trudeau government needs to tread on the issue.

Not necessarily in selling the idea of legalization to those Canadians uncomfortable with another mind altering drug being moved into the column of social acceptability – but making sure the government finds that elusive sweet spot in pricing and availability that will short circuit the inevitable attempts to create a black market for weed.

Simply put, there may well be candidates better suited for this job than Blair – problem is, they’re probably the same people he spent much of his life trying to bust.