Recreational marijuana becomes legal in Canada
People in Canada are cheering, enduring long lines and honking their car horns in support as the country’s first marijuana dispensaries open their doors Wednesday.
“I’m having a plaque made with the date and time and everything. This is never actually going to be smoked. I’m going to keep it forever,” said Ian Power, who was among the first to buy marijuana in St. John’s, a city in the country’s easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Cannabis Act will “provide legal access to cannabis” and “control and regulate its production, distribution and sale.” Anyone over the 18 is legally permitted to possess at most 30 grams of cannabis. People in Canada are also permitted to grow their own plants and can engage in e-commerce to purchase cannabis. In enacting the bill, the government hopes “to prevent young person from accessing cannabis, to protect public health and public safety by establishing strict product safety and product quality requirements and to deter criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework.”
Source: CNN, jurist.org
