Even as voters in more U.S. states approved legalized recreational marijuana this November – and 28 states have legalized medical marijuana – the federal government still lists marijuana as an illegal drug.
However, just north of the border, Canadian leaders have started moving in the opposite direction.
Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party, created a committee in the summer of 2016 to look into the issues surrounding making marijuana legal for recreational use across the entire country.
The panel recently submitted its findings. They call for a tightly controlled, heavily regulated recreational market that aims to provide adults who want to use cannabis a safe and legal way to buy it, while at the same time cracking down on the marijuana “black market.”
The panel, chaired by former Canadian Deputy Primate Minister Anne McLellan, wrote in its report that if put into action their recommendations will “strike a balance between implementing appropriate restrictions, in order to minimize the harms associated with cannabis use, and providing adults access to a regulated supply of cannabis while reducing the scope and scale of the illicit market and its social harms.”
Trudeau has said he expects to file legislation based on the panel’s recommendations in the spring of 2017.
Different approach in Canada.
In the U.S., some in the marijuana industry have voiced…