MONTREAL — There’s been a lot of debate in Trenton about  how the Legislature should go about legalizing marijuana.
But after a trip to Canada for the first day of legalization, I can say this in all confidence: There’s no debating how many people will show up to buy legal pot:
Roughly 1.4 gazillion.
That’s a scientific estimate I made after I observed opening day at a store in Montreal run by the Societe Quebecois du Cannabis, or “SQDC” as it’s known.
The line in front of the nondescript shop went all the way to the end of the block. Then it snaked around the corner down a side street for another block.
After I parked and walked toward the store, I saw a middle-aged guy pull up on a Honda scooter. He chained it to a post and then got on the back of the line, still wearing his motorcycle helmet against the early onset of some winter weather.
I told him how long the line was, but he said he didn’t care.
“When you buy it on the street, you don’t know what you’re gonna get,” he said.
That wasn’t the case at the SQDC store. When I walked up to the entrance I could read a display inside describing the types of marijuana for sale, sativa, indica and a hybrid, with a description of the characteristics of each as well as a chart of its strength.
As I read it, I’d see satisfied customers walking out, each carrying a brown paper bag and smiling. One woman told me she waited two hours to buy half an ounce of weed. But it was worth the wait, she said.
“I suffer from anxiety and this cures it.”
She liked the price as well, $110 Canadian for 15 grams. That works out to about $200 an ounce in American dollars, well under the projected price once New Jersey legalizes.
But the Canadians don’t have much choice when it comes to raising prices. The market for legal pot faces tough competition from a black market that wasn’t all that black even before legalization.
The woman told me that up till Wednesday she’d been buying edible pot online from a place in Vancouver. That was no big deal, she said.
“They put it in a smell-proof wrapping and it doesn’t cross a border, so it doesn’t get checked.”
Unlike our own, the Canadian postal service doesn’t check packages for pot, she said.
Now there will be a lot more of it in the mail.
On the drive up, I’d stopped by a head shop in Quebec’s neighboring province of Ontario. I’d expected to see pot on sale there, but the forlorn owner told me that the provincial government hadn’t yet approved cannabis sales in stores.
All he could sell was a pipe to put it in. To get any weed, Ontario residents will have to order online.
So will most residents of Canada. It’s a huge country.
The province of Quebec, where Montreal is located, has about the same number of people as New Jersey, 8.5 million to our nine million. Those people are spread over a land mass that reaches almost to the Arctic Circle. But there were a mere 12 shops to serve them on opening day.
Here in Jersey, all nine million residents will be within driving distance of whatever pot stores open up. Â And unlike the Canadians, Jerseyans won’t have the option of ordering online. Every single pothead must make his purchase in person.
If what I saw in Montreal was any indication, the lines could stretch across the state.
That could cause some inconvenience for the neighbors.
After standing around in the cold for a while, I went in to a sushi shop to warm up. As I was enjoying my bowl of noodles, a regular customer dropped in, said his hellos to the staff, and then started complaining that the crowds blocked the shop entrance.
“This is crazy. They were lined up at 4 a.m. in downtown Montreal,” he said. “They.should have just decriminalized it first.”
Another regular came in with her young daughter. She was upset that the crowd kept her from parking anywhere near the building.
“For drugs!,” she said. “All this for drugs.”
In defense of the potheads, they all seemed quite polite and well-mannered. After I left the sushi shop, the guy in the motorcycle helmet had worked his way about halfway to the SQDC entrance. He was cold but happy.
Meanwhile the line behind him had gotten no shorter. For every purchaser who exited, one would show up at the end of the line.
As for those who didn’t feel like waiting, there was always a black market selling a product that becomes legal the moment the buyer completes the sale.
There’s a lesson in that for our legislators.
I recommend they visit the Great White North and find it out for themselves.
Credit: www.nj.com
