As Canada Prepares to Legalize Pot, Colorado Offers Advice – Toronto Star
By LAURA KANE – The Canadian Pres – May 1, 2017
DENVER—Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012 and became the first state in the U.S. to launch storefront sales in January 2014. As Canada prepares to legalize pot on July 1, 2018, here are some words of wisdom from current and former officials in the state:
Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s former director of marijuana co-ordination:
Truly engage with stakeholders and the community. “This is a divisive issue that a lot of people have an opinion about, so the more those people are involved in shaping the vision of what this looks like, first of all the vision will get better, but secondly you won’t tear apart the community.”
Focus on data early. “One of the things we didn’t do as well as we could have is set great baseline data. We were not measuring some things that were really important to us, like, how many kids were being suspended from school for marijuana? We were not measuring that, which meant we didn’t have a way to know if that changed after we legalized. … Making sure you’re measuring things that matter to you so you can change policy along the way is really important.”
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