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For better or worse, Canada has all its eggs in one oily basket. These days, that’s not going so well. Forecasts suggest that oil jobs are drying up faster than your girlfriend when you fart. Folks, it’s ugly out there. Thankfully, someone somewhere has a plan to make it better. Tilray, a medical marijuana company, is ready to create nearly 300 jobs in Nanaimo, BC.

Tilray already employs 100 people on Vancouver Island, and is looking for workers to grow plants in its new facility. It is also recruiting people to work in various positions, ranging from security to customer service, and even janitorial work. That sounds professional, especially for a stoner company.

 

"Just another day at the office. Most people hate the daily grind, but it's actually my favourite part."

“Just another day at the office. Most people hate the daily grind, but it brings me great pleasure.”
CNN

 

At a time when big businesses are closing doors, relatively small businesses like Tilray are opening doors and minds. Perhaps that’s why many believe that the marijuana business could be Canada’s ticket to a more diverse economy that could survive an oil shock. Marijuana is a job creator in the medical field, and will generate far more jobs if legalized for recreational purposes. Canadians can grow it in facilities across the country, and can produce strong, local economies based on a valuable, renewable resource.

Still, we should condemn Tilray’s success. We cannot support marijuana jobs because marijuana is bad. It is a gateway drug that Health Canada says can “damage a teen for life.” Medical marijuana is even worse because people think it can help them when they’re sick. They don’t understand that it, unlike other drugs, is bad. People are stupid, and stupider if they smoke marijauna. Marijuana is bad.

If we’re going to diversify our economy, we should do so by expanding into other fossil fuel markets. Sure, they are all vulnerable to gluts and shocks, and none of them are renewable. Yes, it’s true that scientific consensus says that continued burning of fossil fuels will cause “catastrophic” global warming and consequential food shortages, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events. However, none of this is as bad as the possibility of marijuana-related memory loss. An angel cries every time a Canadian loses a job because of marijuana use. People might lose jobs because of our mercurial, single-resource-based economy, but everyone (angels included) knows that’s just the cost of doing business. Remember, marijuana is bad.

Screw Tilray and its efforts to create a strong local job market on Vancouver Island. People from Nanaimo should be happy to move to northern Alberta to work on the rigs! Correction: people from Nanaimo should be happy to wait until the oil market rebounds for their chance to move to northern Alberta to work on the rigs! Until then, they should celebrate the return of their friends and family, who lost their jobs on the rigs when the oil market collapsed. While marijuana tarnishes memories, oil creates memories by bringing families together. Steady as she goes, Canada!