By Justin Samuels
Twitter: @screenwriter32
IG: @samuelsjustin
Canada has become the second country in the world to legalize marijuana at the national level. This is enormous news, considering that Canada is a major Western country, and this is a huge boost for legalization everywhere. Having a broad legal market in Canada is expected to put pressure on the US to legalize on a national level. Of course with recreational marijuana legal, there are a number of legal issues to figure out such as the proper breathalyzer to detect cannabis intoxication. Canada has a number of companies involved in the medical marijuana business that stand to get a huge boost now that they will also be able to sell recreational marijuana. PharmaCielo, a Canadian medical marijuana company, has invested in marijuana farming in Colombia as Colombia has much better weather for cannabis farming.
Recreational marijuana will be legally available in Canada by the middle of 2018. The Canadian government is currently working on putting various regulatory and taxation schemes in place in now so that the launching of legal sales will go smoothly next year. New Brunswick is the first province to set things up for that effect. The government has set up a new crown corporation to oversee recreational cannabis sales. Crown corporations are enterprises owned by either the federal or provincial governments in Canada. The New Brunswick cannabis crown corporation will oversee retail sales, but will not directly sell cannabis to consumers. To provide cannabis to the recreational market, New Brunswick has signed agreements with two medical marijuana companies, Organigram and Canopy Growth to supply New Brunswick’s recreational cannabis market. As of late September 2017, the province has not worked out the details on exactly where consumers will be able to buy recreational cannabis. Those details will be released in the coming months. Tax revenues from the marijuana sales will fund public education and social service programs.
Other provinces like Ontario are debating what direction to take in regulating pot and how big the recreational market will be. Ontario considers pricing marijuana at $10 a gram. It has to be priced low enough so that consumers won’t continue to race to the black market, yet it must be taxed like any other product sold. Ontario also plans on allowing 150 recreational cannabis stores. Ontario and Quebec’s cabinets are currently holding talks on cannabis so they can harmonize regulations. Quebec has yet to come up with plans of its own, but they have decided that they want to harmonize whatever they finally decide with Ontario’s already developed plans. Things are speedily moving on to the path of legal cannabis availability in the middle of 2018.
