This morning, legal cannabis finally becomes a reality in Canada, as the Cannabis Act has finally taken effect.<\/p>\n
However, a policy patchwork across the country\u2019s provinces and ongoing political tussles have left many confused as to what Canada\u2019s new legal cannabis system will actually look like. We break down some of the frequently asked questions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\u2028Who Can Legally Smoke Cannabis in Canada Now?<\/h4>\n
Canada\u2019s Cannabis Act allows those 18 and older to purchase cannabis, either online or from retail stores. However, all the provinces except Quebec and Alberta have\u00a0raised the minimum age to 19,<\/a>\u00a0to conform with the drinking age. (In the U.S., states that have legalized cannabis have an age limit of 21, also matching the drinking age.)<\/p>\n The federal law\u00a0sets a 30-gram limit<\/a>\u00a0for sales or for possession in public. That\u2019s just over an ounce, which is the possession limit in all but one of the U.S.\u00a0states that have legalized. (In Maine, the limit is 2.5 ounces, or 71 grams). The law\u00a0sets no limit on residential possession<\/a>, although some of the provinces have imposed such limits. The limit for residential possession in British Columbia is set at\u00a0one kilogram<\/a>.\u00a0(These rules also only apply to non-medical cannabis, with medical marijuana under a separate system.)<\/p>\n The Canadian law also allows for home cultivation of up to four plants. However, two provinces \u2014 Quebec and Manitoba \u2014 have opted to forbid home-grown. (U.S. states including California, Nevada, Alaska and Colorado allow home cultivation of up to six plants.)<\/p>\n That\u2019s another tricky question. As\u00a0has been noted<\/a>, Quebec\u2019s regulatory legislation would allow people to smoke cannabis in most places where cigarettes are allowed. However, in neighboring Ontario, the provincial law bans consumption in public. So theoretically, Ottawa residents could head to Gatineau, the adjacent town in Quebec, buy cannabis and walk back home smoking it \u2014 as long as they stopped halfway across the interprovincial bridge and either finished off their joint or tossed it into the Ottawa River (which would certainly be a waste).<\/p>\n However, many Quebec municipalities,\u00a0including Montreal<\/a>, have in fact opted to ban public smoking of cannabis. Gatineau is\u00a0considering such an ordinance<\/a>, although it hasn\u2019t passed yet.<\/p>\n A similar situation is\u00a0playing itself out in Alberta<\/a>, with the cities of Jasper and Banff opting for more strict regulations. British Columbia is instating a\u00a0similar regulatory regime<\/a>.<\/p>\n That depends on which province you are in. Canada\u2019s 10 provinces and three territories have each implemented their own regulations, as allowed by the federal Cannabis Act, creating a\u00a0policy patchwork<\/a>.<\/p>\n In some provinces, private retail outlets will be permitted. Alberta has adopted a free-wheeling model, with an unlimited number of private dispensaries \u2014 but it seems those actually ready to open now will be\u00a0clustered around Edmonton<\/a>, the provincial capital.<\/p>\n Saskatchewan will also allow private outlets, but has imposed a province-wide limit of 51 retail permits.\u00a0At least four<\/a>\u00a0but probably no more than 10 will open on Oct. 17.<\/p>\n Other provinces, including Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, have opted for a model of only government-operated retail cannabis outlets \u2014 akin to Canada\u2019s government-run liquor stores. The newly established Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise de Cannabis (SQDC<\/a>)\u00a0says the plan<\/a>\u00a0is to open 20 storefronts \u201cgradually\u201d once legalization takes effect. The SQDC says 14 of these will likely be ready to open on Oct. 17, mostly in Montreal and Quebec City.<\/p>\n Ontario has recently flipped on this question. Initially, the province opted for a government monopoly on all retail sales. But Ontario\u2019s administration, under the confusingly named\u00a0Progressive Conservative Party<\/a>\u00a0(actually more conservative than progressive),\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0in mid-August that it will allow recreational cannabis to be sold in private retail stores while the provincial government will handle online sales. The provincial\u00a0Ontario Cannabis Store<\/a>\u00a0will not operate any storefronts, but will sell through its website \u2014 which will include an age-verification system \u201cto ensure safe home delivery of cannabis products.\u201d\u00a0But things are promising to move slowly. Premier Doug Ford\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0the first retail outlets will not open before April 2019.<\/p>\n Things are also moving slowly in British Columbia. The one government retail outlet in all of the province as cannabis goes legal this month\u00a0will be in the interior city of Kamloops<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 not even cosmopolitan Vancouver. And the old dispensaries that have been operating in a legal \u201cgrey zone\u201d (as it is often called) may not be an option.<\/p>\n \u2028<\/b>That is the big-ticket question. Especially because legal retail outlets are coming online so slowly, a\u00a0black market is likely to persist<\/a>\u00a0for a while, at the very least. And this could mean continued harsh enforcement efforts, and\u00a0even rising arrests<\/a>, after \u201clegalization.\u201d A tolerant approach to the \u201cgrey market\u201d dispensaries established for the medical market could be the way out of this dilemma, if only for a transitional period.<\/p>\n But will authorities be so enlightened? It remains to be seen, and there have been some ominous signs. September\u00a0saw a police raid<\/a>\u00a0on a Vancouver \u201charm reduction center\u201d that was offering cannabis products. Recent months have seen a\u00a0string of such raids<\/a>\u00a0in Toronto.<\/p>\n Just last week, provincial police\u00a0raided eight dispensaries<\/span><\/a>\u00a0across Quebec, making one arrest at each. All the detained citizens have been charged with possession and trafficking. The\u00a0Vancouver Sun<\/span><\/a>\u00a0reported on Oct. 14 that British Columbia dispensaries were racing to purge their stock of \u201cgrey-market\u201d cannabis before legalization takes effect, in hopes of getting approved to stay in business under the regulated market.<\/span><\/p>\n If there is a general crackdown on the \u201cgrey market\u201d outlets before the licensed ones are widely operating, Canadians could be faced with the perverse reality of cannabis becoming\u00a0less<\/i>\u00a0available with \u201clegalization.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Oct. 16, federal officials announced<\/a> that they would be allowing Canadians arrested for simple marijuana possession to apply for a pardon. For months, the administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been asserting that they would not grant amnesty to people in jail for cannabis crimes until after the federal government\u2019s legalization framework is in place. Now that the system is in place, officials said they would not be retroactively clearing people\u2019s records, but that they would be releasing an application for individuals to apply for pardons themselves.<\/p>\n False rumors about expungement in Canada have frequently made waves on the internet. In 2016, when Trudeau\u2019s administration was just beginning to prepare the drafting of the Cannabis Act, a Facebook meme proliferated claiming that he had \u201cfreed from prison and expunged the records of every marijuana user in his country.\u201d The rumor-busters as\u00a0Snopes shot it down<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet another tricky question. The Cannabis Act doesn\u2019t mention First Nations \u2014 only the provincial governments. And the Indian Act, the primary Canadian law governing the country\u2019s indigenous peoples, doesn\u2019t mention cannabis \u2014 only alcohol. So the status of Canada\u2019s some 600 First Nations in the new cannabis order is a\u00a0legal ambiguity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some band councils are aggressively embracing retail outlets and cultivation facilities on the reserves. Others are banning the stuff outright. Both are claiming a sovereign right to do so, no matter what Canadian law has to say. So far, the federal government is taking a hands-off approach.<\/p>\n So sales on indigenous reserves could also help take up the slack while the licensed retail outlets are waiting to come online.<\/p>\n A lot. The\u00a0Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce<\/a>\u00a0(CIBC)\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year: \u201cWe believe that by 2020, the legal market for adult-use cannabis will approach $6.5 billion in retail sales. For context, this is greater than the amount of spirits sold in this country, and approaches wine in scale.\u201d<\/p>\n CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld\u00a0wrote<\/a>, somewhat ominously: \u201cThe bottom line is that federal [and] provincial governments might reap as much as $5 billion from legalization, but only if all the underground sales are effectively curtailed.\u201d<\/p>\n The federal government is saying all revenues from legal cannabis will go into public health.<\/p>\n The Licensed Producers created for Canada\u2019s medical marijuana system are now poised to dominate the recreational market. Leaders include Ontario-based\u00a0Canopy Growth<\/a>\u00a0(the first \u201cplant-touching\u201d cannabis company to\u00a0list on the New York Stock Exchange<\/a>) and\u00a0Aphria Inc<\/a>, and Alberta-based\u00a0Aurora Cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the Licensed Producers\u00a0have been surrounded in controversy<\/a>\u00a0since the government mandated that they were the only legal cultivating businesses in the country, as these large-scale producers lock smaller cultivators out of the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you support Canada\u2019s federal cannabis regulations? Is there anything you think should change?<\/p>\n The post Everything You Need to Know About Canada\u2019s Cannabis Legalization<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
This morning, legal cannabis finally becomes a reality in Canada, as the Cannabis Act has finally taken effect. However, a policy patchwork across the country\u2019s provinces and ongoing political tussles have left many confused as to what Canada\u2019s new legal cannabis system will actually look like. We break down someContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,50,2238,461,1767,687,81,4050],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29927,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29926\/revisions\/29927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How Much Cannabis Can Adults Possess in Canada?<\/h4>\n
Can You Grow Cannabis at Home?<\/h4>\n
Where Can You Smoke Cannabis in Canada?<\/h4>\n
Where Will Cannabis Be Available in Canada?<\/h4>\n
What About Canada\u2019s Old Dispensaries?\u00a0Will They Be Raided?<\/h4>\n
What About People in Prison for Cannabis Offenses?<\/h4>\n
How Does Canada\u2019s New Cannabis Law Affect the First Nations?<\/h4>\n
How Much Money Is Canada\u2019s Government Expecting to Make from Legal Cannabis Sales?<\/h4>\n
Who Is Going To Be Cultivating Canada\u2019s Cannabis?<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Everything You Need to Know About Canada\u2019s Cannabis Legalization<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"