https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/canadas-senate-votes-to-legalize-marijuana/2018/06/19/ab346ea7-807a-4fd4-b08d-0757c9d8f76c_story.html
Canada’s Senate votes to legalize marijuana
by Amanda Coletta June 19 at 11:22 PM


TORONTO — Canada’s Senate voted on Tuesday to pass the federal government’s historic bill legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, clearing the way for the country to become the first advanced industrialized nation to legalize the drug nationwide and fulfilling a major campaign promise of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Senate passed Bill C-45 by a vote of 52 to 29 with two abstentions, lifting a prohibition on the recreational use of marijuana that has been in place since 1923. The law will not come into effect until it receives royal assent — a final ceremonial stage of the legislative process — and the government sets a date for legalization.

Trudeau hoped to make cannabis legal by July 1 — in time for Canada Day — but Canada’s provinces and territories have said that they need an eight- to 12-week-long buffer period to make final preparations before they are able to sell cannabis to consumers. Bill Blair, an architect of the legislation and the parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, told Canada’s CTV News this week that he expects that date to be in September.

Trudeau heralded the vote in a tweet, stating, “It’s been too easy for our kids to get marijuana — and for criminals to reap the profits. Today, we change that.”

Wilson-Raybould, who sponsored the legislation, tweeted that the Senate vote marked “an historic milestone for progressive policy in Canada.”

The law makes Canada the second country after Uruguay to have a nationwide, legal market for marijuana.

It grants the federal government the power to license and regulate a restricted group of cannabis growers, but leaves it largely up to the discretion of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories to decide how to sell and distribute the drug. Some, like Ontario, will sell it at a small number of state-run stores operated by the provincial alcohol monopoly. Others, like Newfoundland and Labrador, will sell it to consumers at select grocery stores.

The legislation sets the minimum age for purchase at 18 and allows for the personal possession of up to 30 grams for dried cannabis, with rules on edibles to come later. Those caught selling marijuana to a minor could face stiff penalties of up to 14 years in jail.

Like tobacco, producers trying to market their product face strict advertising rules. Cannabis can only be sold in plain packaging that is a single, uniform color and free of flashy graphics or images.

Canadians spent more than 5.7 billion Canadian dollars on marijuana in 2017, with the majority of it for recreational use, according to a Statistics Canada report released in January. That makes cannabis a multibillion-dollar industry that is larger than the tobacco industry and as large as the beer industry.

Bill Morneau, Canada’s finance minister, said that he expects the government to rake in nearly 300 million Canadian dollars from the taxes on legalized cannabis. The provincial and federal governments will split the excise tax revenue 75-25 for the first two years after legalization.

One of Trudeau’s first major policy pledges as leader of the Liberal Party was to legalize marijuana, a promise that become a central pillar of his party’s 2015 federal election campaign. When his government introduced Bill C-45 in April 2017, its backers framed it as an effort to discourage consumption among youth, while also crushing the illegal market.

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