"Regulating Cannabis": A Comprehensive Guide

Legalization yes, but how? On 420 pages, the experiences and considerations from the previous legalizations are summarized. A lot of information and that makes one thing very clear: It's not easy. It is a complex venture and each country must develop its own regulations.

With Uruguay, Canada and newly Thailand, three countries have now legalized hemp, plus many federal states in the USA. There is also the incomplete model in the Netherlands and specialties like the tolerated Cannabis Social Clubs in Spain. So there is plenty to look at. On the one hand, that it is possible, on the other hand, that it can be legalized in many different ways: market-oriented or with a state monopoly, for example.

The book “Regulating Cannabis” has been around for a while, but now a new German translation has been published. In this large tome you can find many possible approaches, questions, better and worse approaches.

On the subject of taxes, for example: These can be levied by the state, by the cantons and/or by the municipalities. They then can be used to simply relieve the state budget, or to finance prevention work, or to create social justice for all those who have suffered the unjust repression against cannabis. Has anyone thought about this in such depth yet?

Such issues are laid out and discussed in the book. It contains a nice overview of regulatory models and it addresses the issues regarding production, pricing, taxation, forms of consumption, effects, packaging, sale, purchase, dispensaries, marketing, regulatory authorities, revocation of criminal records, corporate influence, THC in road traffic, hemptourism, and handling international drug conventions.

I found one error: The statement that private cultivation is tolerated in Switzerland is wrong.

But otherwise, the book contains a wealth of suggestions and is a valuable compilation of all the problem-areas we need to think about if we want to legalize.

Short and long versions of the guide can be found as PDFs here: Regulating Cannabis, A Practical Guide

The main page about our info on legalization can be found here.