Can’t have it both ways on cannabis

If we offer you two knocks in the arm, and you ask for none, then naturally one is a good compromise, right?

We’re seeing the results of that logic play out now with the cancellation of a strategy to hand out three cannabis dispensary permits, putting the nail in the coffin of a years-long Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) plan to profit off of 2018’s cannabis legalization.

How long ago was that? Justin Trudeau wasn’t just prime minister then, but he had good poll numbers - in other words, it’s a distant memory.

Now, after years of division and anger around the will-we, won’t-we of cannabis dispensaries, the MCK’s attempt to please everybody has petered out with the announcement that there will be no cannabis sales permitted on the territory after all.

Just as a simple matter of sovereignty, Kahnawake needed to make its own decision when cannabis was legalized, whether that be yea or nay.

But in weighing the pros and cons, Council tried to reap the rewards, avoid the headaches of running the shop (thus diminishing the communal benefit), vow that it wouldn’t get out of control, and tamp down the growing community opposition while citing consultations that never generate much engagement.

Mission: Impossible.

This all while sidestepping the Longhouses, whose members were clearly against cannabis sales, and who need to be reached in other ways.

The plan, as it was laid out by the MCK, was sure to raise eyebrows. Three dispensary licenses? Talk about picking winners and losers. Whoever received one was sure to become phenomenally rich, a recipe for resentment, especially when it would be the whole community left to deal with the consequences.

Of course, with the idea of a community-owned casino voted down multiple times by Kahnawa’kehró:non, the MCK probably figured the timid route of letting someone else have the butter if Council gets the buttermilk was the only way to squeeze through this particular genre of revenue generation.

After all, isn’t this what has happened with the push for electronic gaming devices, which is simultaneously boosting Council’s ability to spend on services and capital projects while saddling it with a $220 million lawsuit that could empty its (your) pockets?

It’s a tightrope, and we’re not against revenue generation out of hand. We see the value of own-source revenues. It might sound crass, but a future in which Kahnawake makes ends meet on its own projects, or even possesses a fund so fat that services can be delivered on dividends alone - no Canadian input required - may be an important part of Kahnawake’s future expressions of sovereignty.

But at the same time, while we hear a lot about wind projects and other green initiatives, the lion’s share of revenues come from one source right now, and that’s Playground Poker, part of the same industry that many feel has been shoved down Kahnawake’s throats.

Cannabis would have been in the same vein, and, we fear, we can pretty much set up our lawn chairs right now and watch the lawsuits roll in following the cancellation.

Years ago, this cannabis file was a done deal, then most of the community woke up and said iah. Better late than never, we suppose, and it was now or never for everyone interested in keeping weed stores out, as the clock came perilously close to striking midnight.

Threats of lawsuits in colonial courts should not dictate Kahnawake’s choices, but the fact revenue generation projects are so intertwined with instances of Kahnawa’kehró:non suing their own says a thing or two about how not to go forward.

Perhaps MCK is inured to opposition, since they get criticized anytime they try to bring in money that can be used to reduce dependency on the Canadian government, and just figured this would blow over like everything else.

Credit where it’s due to Council for being willing to change their minds. We all know that’s never easy. But there’s no two ways about it - the community did this.

It was a sight to behold, standing around the fire lit in front of the band office last year. Led by Longhouse representatives, Kahnawa’kehró:non united in forceful opposition to cannabis sales on the territory. It was a huge protest, and MCK chiefs dutifully lined up to swallow their pride and hear the community’s anger.

Nothing was said that day that did much to justify the plan to hand out three cannabis permits, pretty much tantamount to handing out three winning Cash for Life cards with the foil already scratched off.

(Speaking of which, does anyone think handing out three golden tickets would not have emboldened competing entrepreneurs to just sell it anyways, and then sue their way out of the consequences?)

Following the rally, we mostly heard something like this from those defending the plan – consultations were done, where were these folks at that time?

The consequences to Indigenous communities that host cannabis shops are by now well established, bringing new urgency to the question. One need look no further than Kahnawake’s sister community.

Some readers may gloss over the Pines section, but something very worrisome is happening in Kanesatake right now: cannabis stores, which have sprouted up like weeds (no pun intended), are not only attracting hordes of outsiders with zero respect for Indigenous people or Indigenous values, but they are now gearing up to essentially police the community themselves, a story broken by The Eastern Door.

Kanesatake’s official security team, already not equipped like the Peacekeepers are, is set to run out of funding, creating a massive vacuum. Now these stores, which are almost routinely burned and shot at, have a solution: send out their private armed security guards to patrol the community themselves.

Downright scary, when you think about it.

Would that happen here in Kahnawake? Well, probably not. After all, Kahnawake has a real police force. Kahnawake also has the means not to worry as much about the whims of government funding, scrounging together narrow grants like nickels in the proverbial couch.

There’s the knife’s edge. Resources, which Kahnawake has in spades these days, mostly through own-source revenue generation, bolster sovereignty. But the wrong approach to generating revenue comes with new, dangerous problems.

Council might have had a point that it has the ability to regulate cannabis dispensaries in a way Kanesatake can’t - after all, those cannabis stores don’t possess permits. Most of them are not even built on land the business owners had any right to build on, and instead of royalties to the community, the stores pay whatever they feel like, in exchange for plastering their logos on community initiatives desperate for funding, some of which are geared toward children.

But would the throngs of speeding white folks who overwhelm Kanesatake day and night, thinking they’re going to Oka, have any more respect for the community here, which is a shorter drive? Probably not.

And at what cost would they be welcomed here, mostly to enrich a select few? Nobody knows.

But a decision has been made and will hopefully put this chapter to rest.

The questions the saga raises, however, still need to be answered.

Marcus Bankuti, managing editor

Steve Bonspiel, editor/publisher