Canada becomes 2nd Nation to legalize Marijuana for all Adults
Posted by Sagar Satapathy on October 17, 2018.
Canada legalized possession and use of recreational cannabis for all adults on Wednesday. With this, Canada became the second country in the world and first G7 country to legalize marijuana sales nationwide.
Canada also became the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace.
The first recreational cannabis to be legally bought in Canada was purchased at midnight on Wednesday (02:30 GMT) on the eastern island of Newfoundland amid queues of hundreds of people.
Ian Power, from the town of St John's, began queuing at 20:00 along with many others so he could "make history" and finally became the first person to buy recreational cannabis.
"It's been my dream to be the first person to buy the first legal gram of cannabis in Canada, and here I finally am," he said.
"I am going to frame it and hang it on my wall. I'm not even going to smoke it. I'm just going to save it forever," he added.
As per the law, adults will be able buy cannabis oil, seeds and plants and dried cannabis from licensed producers and retailers and to possess up to 30 grams (one ounce) of dried cannabis in public, or its equivalent. Besides, they can grow more than four plants per household.
However, someone caught selling the drug to a minor could be jailed for up to 14 years.
The legalizing cannabis is expected to create an industry worth more than $4 billion in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise to legalize marijuana in 2015, and his Liberal government delivered in the form of Bill C-45, otherwise known as the Cannabis Act.
While Trudeau cast the bill in a public health lens, in order to make marijuana more difficult for teenagers to access and erode black market profits, the global financial community is eagerly looking at Canada to see how legalization plays out.
Possession of cannabis first became a crime in Canada in 1923 but medical marijuana has been legal in the country since 2001.
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