Signal 3: The largest retail pharmacy in Canada licensed medical marijuana producer after the legality of cannabis

Shoppers Drug Mart becomes a medical licensed marijuana producer recently, which is authorized to sell medical weed to patients.

Cannabis will become legal in Canada on 17 October 2018. Although it is legal only for medicinal purposes, the risk of cannabis overdose and its negative effect after overdosing still exists and cannot be ignored. Giving marijuana producer license to Shoppers inevitably helps the irresponsible users to access weed easily and increases their personal risks in transportation and health. Also, people who overdose in weed cannot behave rationally soon after their use. Therefore, selling medical weed to them will threaten public safety and public health, which makes this policy a controversial topic in urban management.

Given the potential risk of this policy, the policymakers should conduct more research before giving out the license. For example, make this policy an experiment in some cities to see its result and then promote it to larger areas. If selling weed in retail pharmacy will not increase the crime rate in that area, then this policy is feasible. Besides, the policymakers should improve the data quality in background check, avoiding people to fake their background data and easily get weed. In short, minimizing the negative effect of consume weed is the priority of the policymakers.

Source:“Shoppers Drug Mart Now a Licensed Medical Marijuana Producer.” Thestar.com, Toronto Star, 21 Sept. 2018, www.thestar.com/news/cannabis/2018/09/21/shoppers-drug-mart-now-a-licensed-medical-marijuana-producer.html.