Canada legalises cannabis
Trudeau fulfils 2015 election campaign promise. >26
ottawa: Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition has came to an end, as Canada has become the first major Western nation to legalise and regulate its sale and recreational use.
The change yesterday was praised by pot enthusiasts and investors in a budding industry that has seen pot stocks soar on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges, but sharply questioned by some health professionals and opposition politicians.
“We’re not legalising cannabis because we think it’s good for our health. We’re doing it because we know it’s not good for our children,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on the eve of the reform.
“We know we need to do a better job to protect our children and to eliminate or massively reduce the profits that go to organised crime.”
The Cannabis Act, which fulfills a promise Trudeau made in the 2015 election campaign, makes Canada only the second nation after Uruguay to legalise the drug.
Its implementation will be scrutinised and dissected by Canadians ahead of the 2019 election, as well as other nations that the Prime Minister has said may follow suit if the measure proves a success.
Trudeau himself admitted in 2013 to having smoked pot five or six times in his life.
He has also said his late brother Michel was facing marijuana possession charges for a “tiny amount” of pot before his death in an avalanche in 1998, and that this influenced his decision to propose legalising cannabis.
But Trudeau’s office said he “does not plan on purchasing or consum- ing cannabis once it is legalised”.
In total, Statistics Canada says 5.4 million Canadians will buy cannabis from legal dispensaries this year – about 15% of the population. Around 4.9 million already smoke.
Stores in St John’s in the Atlantic island province of Newfoundland were due to open their doors to pot enthusiasts as of 12.01am yesterday.
“I’m going to have a lot more variety than the black market dealers, so you have a lot more choice at our store. The prices are very comparable,” Thomas Clarke, owner of THC Distribution store, told public broadcaster CBC.
Under the new regulations, Canadians aged at least 18 or 19 (soon to be 21 in Quebec) will be allowed to buy up to 30g of cannabis and grow up to four plants at home.
A patchwork of private and public cannabis retail stores and online sales have been set up across the 13 provinces and territories, ramping up to 300 storefronts by year’s end, the government predicts.
Public health officials contend that smoking cannabis is as harm- ful as tobacco, but welcome what they call the opportunity that legalisation affords for open dialogue.
Some doctors remain wary. Diane Kelsall, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, called legalisation “a national, uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are squarely pitched against the health of Canadians”.
Police, meanwhile, are scrambling to prepare for a predicted uptick in drug-impaired driving.