It has been about 15 years since I started dealing in quarters!
You see a ¼ lb is 113.398g and I knew from a very early age that if I went to the sweet shop where the kind lady spoke nothing but pre-napoleonic imperial, I would get more strawberry bon bons in my little paper bag.
Metrology, the science of measurement, has always fascinated me. And if you use cannabis, either recreationally or medicinally, then it is more than likely that it will fascinate you too.
First of all, let me introduce to you “The Weights and Measures Act 1985”. There have been much “legislation” over the past thousand years in Britain, aimed at the control and regulation of all things measured. In Britain during the 18th century legislation was created to protect the interest of ale enthusiasts. Currently ‘The Weights and Measures Act 1985’ governs pretty much everything that you buy that isn’t a fixed unit and these laws are comparable across nations. To ensure that the customer is being sold what they are promised, companies of all kinds must go through stringent quality control measures. This includes measurement, calibration and correct labelling.
So, as an 8 year old boy, I would stand at the counter of the sweet shop watching eagerly, standing un-content until the scales tipped the ¼ lb mark.
Cast your eyes back to the last time you picked up your cannabis, whether it was from a street dealer or a trusted buddy, did you get to see the scales as your order was being weighed out? What was to say the scales were even calibrated? How do you know that what you are paying for is exactly what you are getting. You simply do not.
To understand how this can be possible on a large regulated cannabis market, we are going to have to compare methods and strategies with something comparable, and yes I have decided to carry on the theme and choose broccoli.
So first of all, how do we measure broccoli? Well in the UK the recognised unit of weight would be grams. Now we can look at what it says in the Act.
“Section 30 – Quantity less than stated.
(1)If, in the case of any goods pre-packed in or on a container marked with a statement in writing with respect to the quantity of the goods, the quantity of the goods is at any time found to be less than that stated, then, subject to sections 33 to 37 below—
(a)any person who has those goods in his possession for sale shall be guilty of an offence, and
(b)if it is shown that the deficiency cannot be accounted for by anything occurring after the goods had been sold by retail and delivered to, or to a person nominated in that behalf by, the buyer, any person by whom or on whose behalf those goods have been sold or agreed to be sold at any time while they were pre-packed in or on the container in question, shall be guilty of an offence.”
And this is really good to know. You can now go to your favourite shop, safe in the knowledge that if your shopkeeper is a law abiding citizen, then your 255g Broccoli, is going to weigh 255g (+/- a tolerance).
Unfortunately folks, prohibition currently means that your supplier of cannabis has no legal, (but if not a moral?) duty to be a good person. This leaves many of us in the sickening position of returning home only to realise that you have been under-weighed. Prohibition always means, that you have no right under the “Sale of Goods Act 1979 (I’ll get to that one in another blog) for a refund. Many of us have to deal with this on a regular basis and for those who buy their cannabis in small amounts, can lead to an unreasonable percentage of product unaccounted for.
£10 a gram. 0.9 x (3 times a week) x (4 times a month) x (12 time a year) = Roughly the average household water bill in the UK for a family of four.
£144.
Erm……
However, there is a solution. Upon the legalisation and regulation of cannabis. Cannabis will be produced as a plant, trimmed as a plant, packaged and then sold as a product. YES, this means that it will be governed by the “Weights and Measures Act 1985”.
This is what cannabis and packaging looks like, when purchased from a legal outlet in Spain or the USA. To someone who wasn’t familiar was cannabis around the world, then this will seem really quite strange but cannabis has many variants and those variants are grown specifically and given to patients for a certain purpose and it’s all displayed on a label. Not wrapped up in the corner of a half-melted Morrisons bag. Gross.
In fact, quality control is usually taken further by issuing batch numbers.
So, you can see your cannabis, be assured of it’s weight, you could even be told when it was picked and of course the name of the strain. Because legal dispensaries/Social clubs, don’t just sell “Cheese” or “Haze”.
You don’t have to put up with being ripped off anymore, take the time to look at the examples in Spain, USA, Netherlands and others. The Cannabis industry, most certainly is an industry and professionalism will ensure that the patients needs are met.
For more information on the Weights and Measures Act, visit: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/72
Join your local UKCSC today and you could be instrumental in the decision making, as we all work towards reform in UK law and the successful implementation of the Cannabis Social Club model.
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