OTTAWA
— Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
introduced legislation on Thursday to legalize the recreational use of
marijuana in Canada.
Many
nations have either decriminalized marijuana, allowed it to be
prescribed medically or effectively stopped enforcing laws against it.
But when Mr. Trudeau’s bill passes as expected, Canada will become only
the second nation, after Uruguay, to completely legalize marijuana as a
consumer product.
“Criminal
prohibition has failed to protect our kids and our communities,” said
Bill Blair, a lawmaker and former Toronto police chief whom Mr. Trudeau
appointed to manage the legislation.
Mr.
Blair said at a news conference that the government hoped to begin
allowing legal sales by the middle of 2018. While the government’s plan
has been broadly shaped by a panel of experts, many issues still need to
be ironed out.
“We do accept that important work remains to be done,” he said.
While
the federal government will license and regulate growers, each of
Canada’s provinces will need to decide exactly how the drug will be
distributed and sold within its boundaries. The government will have to
develop the marijuana equivalents of breathalyzers so that drivers can
be checked for impairment at the roadside and workers can be tested for
safety on the job. Diplomats will have to address conflicts with
international drug treaties. And many in the medical field are concerned
about the long-term health effects of increased use of marijuana by
Canadians under the age of 25.
Though
eight American states have legalized marijuana to various extents, the
drug remains illegal under federal law. Mr. Trudeau’s move eliminates
any such ambiguity in Canada. It follows a court-mandated legalization
of marijuana for medical purposes, which was introduced with tight
controls in 1999 and later broadened by further court orders.
While the new legislation will take Canada beyond its medical marijuana
system, it stops far short of creating an open market. The law will
require purchasers to be at least 18 years old — though provinces can
set a higher minimum — and it will limit the amount they can carry at
any one time to 30 grams, about an ounce.
Households
will be allowed to grow up to four marijuana plants. But the
legislation seems built on the assumption that most users will be
supplied by commercial growers, who will be licensed and closely
supervised by the federal government.
Growing,
importing, exporting or selling marijuana outside licensed channels
will remain serious crimes, according to Mr. Blair and Ralph Goodale,
the public safety minister.
Each province will decide where and how marijuana may be sold, and will set prices in conjunction with the federal government.
How
much marijuana will cost and how heavily it will be taxed will be
influenced by Canada’s experience with tobacco, which is also tightly
regulated.
When
the country tried to discourage smoking by sharply increasing cigarette
taxes, it inadvertently created a growing black market for cigarettes
smuggled from the United States and elsewhere.
Since
one of the government’s main aims with the new law is to wipe out — or
at least reduce — illicit marijuana dealing, it will want to avoid
measures that spur its growth.
It
is unclear where users will be able to buy the drug. Several provinces
restrict alcohol sales mainly to government-run liquor stores, and a
similar arrangement may be used for marijuana. But a federal task force
that released its findings late last year recommended that marijuana not be offered in shops that also sell alcohol.
One thing seems clear: The illegal marijuana stores
that sprang up in several cities after Mr. Trudeau came to power in
late 2015, in anticipation of the new law, are not likely to be allowed
to stay in business. The shops are supplied by black-market growers or
organized criminal groups, and while the police have left them alone in
some cities, the authorities have been openly skeptical about assertions
by shop owners that they sell only to medical users.
Ontario’s attorney general is seeking a forfeiture order
that would allow them to confiscate almost 600,000 Canadian dollars in
cash — about $450,000 — that was seized at the Toronto airport from an
employee of a chain of seven illegal medical marijuana outlets in the
city.
Figuring
out how to measure impairment is a priority on the government’s list of
things it must do before the legal market is expanded.
Several
police forces, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are testing
two types of screening devices that can detect drugs — including THC,
the main psychoactive substance in marijuana — in saliva.
Proposed
amendments to criminal laws would require motorists to give the police
saliva samples on request and allow officers to demand a breath test for
alcohol when stopping drivers for any reason.
The
issue goes beyond motorists. Gilbert Brulotte, the former chairman of
the Canadian Construction Association, said the law may lead to
increased accident rates on job sites.
Mr.
Brulotte acknowledged that marijuana use by construction workers has
been a safety problem for a long time. But until now, he said, any
evidence of marijuana use was grounds to fire someone. After
legalization, employers will need to show that the worker was impaired
on the job.
“We
are not against legalization; we’re just interested in making sure that
thresholds and proper technologies are in place,” Mr. Brulotte said,
adding that the industry also wanted the right to perform random drug
tests in the workplace.
The legislation would seem to put Canada in violation of three United Nations treaties concerning drugs. But a study released this week
by the University of Ottawa Global Strategy Lab found that the
government may be able to justify the measure under exemptions for
“scientific purposes.”
The
promise of the new law has prompted investors to bid up the stocks of
11 licensed medical marijuana growers. Several have tripled or
quadrupled in price over the past year.
But while the existing licensed growers — more than 40 in all,
including those that are not publicly traded — are expected to have a
head start in the recreational market, it is not clear that they will
see a boom of the kind that, say, whiskey distillers enjoyed after
Prohibition was repealed.
Indeed
several of those companies saw their stock prices fall after the bill
was introduced. Shares of Canopy Growth, the largest publicly traded
producer and the owner of the Tweed medical marijuana brand, were down more than 4 percent by late afternoon.
Mr.
Blair said the Canadian system would place public health policy above
commercial interests. “It is not our intent to promote the use of this
drug,” he said.
Under
the new law, marijuana will be marketed more like cigarettes than like
liquor. Marketing will be limited largely to providing factual
information about the product, like its name, its ingredients and the
strain of marijuana used.
The
government is considering regulations that would allow only plain
packaging to be used, as a bill now in Canada’s Senate will require for
cigarettes.
Even
so, Brendan Kennedy, the president of Tilray, a medical marijuana
producer in Nanaimo, British Columbia, said his company would ask that
producers be allowed to develop brands through distinctive packaging.
“Otherwise it will be a race to the bottom, as companies will compete
only based on potency and price,” he said.
Though
many licensed growers appeared to get into the medical marijuana
business with an eye toward the eventual opening of the much larger
recreational market, Canada’s first legal grower said on Wednesday that
the government’s action was premature.
“I think it’s rather aggressive,” said Brent Zettl, the president and chief executive of CanniMed Therapeutics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. “I think it’s rather arrogant of Justin Trudeau.”
Mr.
Zettl, whose company had the medical marijuana market to itself for
several years, said he owed it to his investors to get into recreational
marijuana, but he was not certain that it would be very profitable.
And
he said he agreed with doctors and police officials who want higher
minimum ages to buy the drug: 25 for high-potency products and 21 for
reduced potency.
The
bill includes stiff new criminal penalties for people who sell or give
marijuana to minors, or who create cannabis products that appeal to
children or adolescents.
Widespread
use of more potent recreational marijuana, Mr. Zettl added, may also
undermine efforts to understand the drug’s medicinal effects,
particularly for users looking for relief, not a high.
“It’s good from an industry perspective,” Mr. Zettl said of the new law. “I don’t think it’s good for society.”
At
the news conference, Mr. Goodale warned that Canada’s new law would
apply only in Canada, and cautioned citizens not to take their marijuana
out of the country.
John
F. Kelly, the United States secretary of homeland security, told the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Ottawa last month that he saw no
need for new border measures once the law took effect. But he did have a
tip: “I would just highly recommend to Canadians to check those pockets
one more time.”
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