Legal pot coming sometime next summer, Trudeau says
Advocates for legal recreational pot use may have jumped the gun due to overwhelming joy that the government decided to make the drug legal, spreading false information that marijuana would be legal as of July 1st next summer.
In actual fact, marijuana will become legal for purchase as a recreational drug some time “next” summer, and this news comes from a pretty reliable mouth, that of the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The prime minister said it “would not be July 1,” but that it would be “for next summer.”
“The date will not be July 1, I can assure you of that,” Trudeau said. “I don’t know where that date came from.”
Maybe, Health Canada is partially to blame for the confusion as they recently released a statement in which they say that marijuana will become legal by July of 2018.
A statement issued by the Health Department last month said, “as previously indicated, the government of Canada intends to bring the proposed Cannabis Act into force no later than July 2018.”
One can see how easy it would be to jump the gun hearing this statement, but what this likely means, if true is that the drug will likely become legal to purchase even earlier than Canada Day.
Currently, marijuana is legal from a medicinal perspective but it is not legal to smoke recreationally. The move to make the drug legal has been met with joy and criticism.
Government announces plan to make marijuana legal
Back in April of this year, the government announced plans to make the drug legal, and in June of this year, they announced that the drug would be made “legal” to purchase recreationally by the summer of next year.
There are still things to iron out before the drug does become legal.
Questions like: how much will the drug cost? How much can a person buy at one time? Will there be different brands?
Provinces to set their own pot guidelines
Since news of the legalization of marijuana broke, different Canadian provinces have been tasked with trying to figure out how they plan on selling the drug and monitoring it to make sure that it is legally sold.
The majority of provinces have weighed in already, revealing how they plan to monitor the sale of the drug, and there are numerous similarities between them.
The majority of provinces have set the legal age to buy legal pot, as the same legal age to buy alcohol. In Ontario, this makes perfect sense, as legal pot shops will be operated by the LCBO.
The majority of provinces have stipulated that a person purchasing legal pot needs to provide government issued identification to varify their age.
Some provinces have stipulated that people who buy the drug, must keep it locked away at home when they are not smoking it.
Nunavut, PEI and Saskatchewan have held public consultations pertaining to the drug but are yet to release their own blueprints when it comes to how they plan to manage the drug.
Some provinces have also announced substantial fines and even jail time as punishment for anybody found to be in violation of guidelines that their province lays out.
No provinces have actually nailed down exactly where, legal pot will be sold.
A number of provinces across the country have actually asked the government to delay making the drug legal, while they figure out how they are going to monitor it.
Not all in favor of legal marijuana
While many, many Canadians are onboard with making marijuana legal for recreational purposes, there are those who are not.
One such person, is Tory MP Marilyn Gladu who is very much against the government’s decision to make pot legal.
She is so opposed to the idea, that she took the time to write a poem denouncing the decision to legalize the drug, reading it before a question period in the House of Commons earlier this year.
“My speaker I want to protest an ill thought out bill,
That is passing through parliament here on the hill,
The bill that is bad is called C-45,
It has so many flaws it just shouldn’t survive,
The Grits will allow four pot plants in each dwelling,
Regardless of how bad each place will be smelling
With mold, ventilation as issues unplanned,
This bill will not keep pot from our children’s hand,
There are more new infractions within this new rule,
That our courts will be flooded as will every school,
With drug impaired driving and challenges there,
The doubling of traffic deaths and Liberals don’t care,
The provinces and police in every town,
Have all asked the Liberals to slow this bill down,
With nearly 200 more days left til the day,
Nobody but your party stands in the way,
We hope that the senate will do its true deed,
And keep our great country safe from all the weed.”
Her creative poem apparently has fallen on deaf ears, as the government is fully onboard with making the drug legal in the country.
And why wouldn’t they? The money that they will generate from the sale of the drug will be mind boggling.
