The federal government has unveiled its much anticipated legislation to legalize recreational pot and is slated to come into effect by July 2018.
Under the legislation the minimum age you can legally buy pot is 18. Adults can have up to 30 grams of legal marijuana in public and grow up to four plants per household at a maximum height of one metre.
When pot is legalized in Canada, that will make us only the second country in the world to legalize pot at the federal level, joining Uruguay.
Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair says ‘criminal prohibition has failed our kids and communities’ and that a new approach is needed.
“Despite decades of criminal prohibition, Canadians, including 21-percent of our youth, and 30-percent of young adults, continue to use cannabis at among the highest rates in the world. That cannabis is grown and sold illegally, profiting criminals and organized crime,” says Blair.
The government says the bill would, for the first time, make it a specific criminal offence to sell pot to a minor.
“It will impose serious criminal penalities for those who provide cannabis to young people,” says Blair, “create a legal and regulated market for cannabis to take the profits out of the hands of criminals and organized crime and it will protect public health through strict public requirements for safety and quality.”
