The Harper Government® plans to privatize medical marijuana

Health Canada plans to get out of the business of growing medical marijuana to supply licensed patients and let drug companies take over. This means that patients won't be allowed to grow their own pot. Marijuana proponents fear the privatization will double the price, which is currently around $5/gram.

Not to cheer over bad policy, but should this come to fruition it will be an exceptional economics case study.

What the fuck, Canada? I thought you guys were liberal commie paradise, not Ayn Rand's Free Market Wet Dream.

This is what happens what Albertans (think Texans that say "Sorry" and "Thank you" a lot) and (non-Christian) religious conservative sub-urbanites vote in a conservative government. The current Conservative Party of Canada is not related to the previous Progressive Conservative Party of Canada -- the former were once social/religious conservative Reform Party while the latter were "economic conservatives" (I added the quotes because the PCs never balanced a budget).

Remember, markets are freest when a necessary* good must be purchased from a shortlist of government-approved vendors, especially when said good can be cheaply produced with unskilled labor and no capital.

* tell a pain patient their pot isn't necessary, I dare ya

The really short answer is "they're only 30-40% of the country" with the actual GOP-lite being rather smaller, but the rest of the political spectrum is fragmented between 4 parties in an electoral system that starts distorting the results as soon as you have three or more.

They've been less ideologically radical than expected, which is something at least. But the other political parties have shown more or less zero recognition of the fact that the government will continue winning majorities if they don't consolidate through mergers or electoral agreements, so, the conservative base and their penumbra of soft support (30-40%) may be running Canada for another decade at the rate we're going.

It's even weirder from up here, trust us.

Like watching a monkey fuck a football.

Even at $10 a gram that price for quality of weed you guys get up there is just... fucking... fuck you, Canada.