S........0

I have been a passionate supporter of cannabis legalization in Canada since I began smoking it way back in 1994 as an underage high school kid and going to legalization rallies with my friends. I have always been happy to commit civil disobedience in the form of choosing what I put in my body and who I get it from. But on October 17, 2018, I was feeling very proud to be Canadian, and decided to give the legal system a try (although the Ontario government clearly realized that the OCS online option alone was not nearly sufficient to meet demand until retail licenses were also handed out, as they will be in the spring). The site is DREADFUL to the point that it was clear I would be frustrated with the product and/or delivery if I tried to make a purchase, so I didn't even bother. They use a Shopify template with no meaningful design or customization. They use non-standard strain names so you can't check on Leafly to see what people think. They don't have reviews or * ratings themselves so you can't see if you're wasting your money / buying a product you're likely to enjoy. And they don't even show you a picture of the actual cannabis, just some stupid cigarette-pack style container with branding for the grower and generic warning labels. The education section is stupid and doesn't tell you anything about what strains to use for what effect. That is so DUMB if the government is serious about reducing harm through knowledge - for example, I know, as an experienced cannabis user, that smoking a little sativa on your lunch break is unlikely to impair focus or performance at the office... but God help me if I use indica for any activity other than bedtime or weekend chillaxing. Sadly, the exact consumers most likely to tolerate the confusing and inefficient OCS are the ones least likely to know such vital harm reduction information - which is why the OCS should be syndicating educational content from Leafly if they are too uncomfortable being in the position of government nanny and cannabis promoter simultaneously. Anyways, I soon ended up at my favorite illegal dispensary (it's a chain, with 3 locations in Toronto). Where I did not have the benefit of lab analysis of the strains I was buying, nor of proof that the strains were even accurately represented - which kinda sucked given that legalization was intended to solve such problems (and has in other provinces and in states like CO and CA where it's been done wholeheartedly instead of reluctantly as in Canada). At the dispensary, I waited in line for 90 minutes on a weeknight - because the Toronto bylaw enforcement morons, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to go and shut down every dispensary in the city the moment legalization became reality - EXCEPT the 3 very professionally run shops I speak of here. CAFE is the name, "Cannabis And Fine Edibles" I asked several staff members "how are you going to get a license if you're continuing to operate from now till April?" and their responses clearly suggested that their chain had been secretly greenlighted by the Ontario government (or that a bribe had been paid, but I doubt that - sounds more like a pilot for licensing and / or attempt to decrease black market demand in our biggest city during the interim period where the only legal supplier acknowledged by the govt is the OCS, and which even they fully know is a joke. Let's stop wasting tax money on this absurdity of a site, and redirect it towards expediting the issuance of licenses to the many local small business owners who have been forced to shut down for 6 months due to bureaucratic ineptitude!