Not only should we do that; we have to do it for this to be successful in eliminating the black market.
The fact of the matter is that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people involved in the illicit industry today. I've represented many of these people. I would invite them all to my home to have dinner with my family. They are wonderful, good people. There is no reason for them to be considered or lumped into this category of “organized crime” with its connotations of violence and gang-related activity. That's just not what's going on.
In perhaps thousands of disclosures that I've seen in criminal cases, a small fraction of them contained any evidence of any involvement with what Canadians traditionally believe is organized crime. You've heard from Professor Boyd, I believe. His research in this area shows that 95% of people are not involved with organized crime.
How do we bring them out of the shadows and into the light? We have to make it easy for them to participate. We have to get rid of some of the onerous barriers to access that exist in the medical production system, the unnecessary security requirements, the government's micromanaging and requirement that 800- or 1,000-page standard operating procedures be provided in order to get a licence. Government should be setting baseline standards that private enterprise has to meet. If you meet those standards, you get to participate in the new, licit system.
That's how we do it. It sounds simple because it is simple. We need to get rid of this paradigm of considering people who are in the cannabis industry today as somehow criminals whom we have to prevent from participating in the future. They are not going to stop. Why would they? Prohibition hasn't driven them out of business. Legalization certainly won't.