Recreational Cannabis legalization in Canada. The experiment begins
Canada has become the first important economy in the world that has legalized recreational cannabis. The US began before. But what we are seeing in Canada is a national level legalization. It is not like in the US, where still remain states where cannabis is illegal.
Canadian politicians consider this phenomenon a national experiment that is going to change the country’s mentality in many different aspects. It is considered the biggest policy challenge that occurred in Canada in many years.
Across the whole country, as government cannabis retailers opened, happy citizens were waiting during several hours in line to buy their legal cannabis. For many of them it was a very exciting moment, similar to what happened in the neighbor country when the Prohibition of alcohol stopped in 1930.
This is occurring in a moment on which Canada is being colliding with the US, and its commercial talks and Prime is being attacked by Donald Trump. We cannot forget Canada is the second country in the whole world where cannabis has been legalized.
Marco Beaulieu, a doorman, said while waiting with his friends to buy recreational weed outside a government cannabis retailer in the province of Montreal: “I have never felt so proud to be Canadian. Canada is once again a progressive global leader. We have gay rights, feminism, abortion rights, and now we can smoke pot without worrying police are going to arrest us.” Mr. Beaulieu is another citizen who thinks banning cannabis while allowing alcohol is absurd.
Precaution
Canadians widely support cannabis legalization. But a sense of precaution still remains.
“Legalization of cannabis is the largest public policy shift this country has experienced in the last 50 years. It is an octopus with many tentacles, and there are many unknowns. I don’t think that when the federal government decided to legalize marijuana it thought through all its implications.” Said Mike Farnworth, British Columbia’s minister of public safety.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal called the Government decision an “uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are squarely pitched against the health of Canadians.”
This association is afraid of an increasing use of cannabis due to the new law.
According to the new law, adults will be allowed to have, carry and share (of course with other adults) no more than 30 grams of dried flowers of cannabis. They will be also allowed to grow up to four plants at home.
