In what one Canadian government official called “the largest public policy shift this country has experienced in the past five decades,” Canada on Wednesday became the world’s largest legal market for recreational marijuana when the country’s new legal pot law took effect nationwide.
“It’s an octopus with many tentacles, and there are many unknowns,” British Columbia Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth told The New York Times. “I don’t think that when the federal government decided to legalize marijuana it thought through all of the implications.”
But it’s not only public safety officials who are unhappy about Canada’s legalization of marijuana. Surprisingly, some pro-pot activists also worry that the mass legalization of marijuana could backfire, according to a report by the technology and culture site Inverse.
“It could be more of a Big Brother situation than it’s ever been before,” University of Guelph in Ontario sociologist Andrew Hathaway, who specializes in drug policy research, told the site. “In an era of legalization, which generally would suggest more progressiveness, it may not work out that way.”
The catch in the new Canadian law is not the legalization of cannabis, but the regulation of the market. As Hathaway pointed out, marijuana itself is not legal; only marijuana bought and sold in the regulated market, and people who purchase marijuana from dealers not authorized by the government can still be charged as criminals.
Under the new law, Canadians may purchase and possess up to 30 grams of pot—slightly more than one ounce—in public. But anything over the 30 gram limit remains against the law, according to a Washington Post report.
“Whereabouts is 31 grams arbitrarily good for 14 years in prison, whereas 30 isn’t?” said one cannabis rights activist quoted by Inverse. “Thirty-one grams isn’t going to kill me any more than 30 is, or anybody else on the planet, so there’s a complete lack of clarity.”
At the same time, many marijuana users were not worried about the drawbacks, and according to report by Time Magazine, Canadian cannabis consumers were thrilled with the new legalization law.
“This is awesome. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,” said Tom Clarke, a formerly illegal pot dealer in Newfoundland. “I am so happy to be living in Canada right now instead of south of the border.”
But perhaps the happiest Canadians were those who had a criminal marijuana conviction on their records. As long as their offenses involved less than 30 grams of marijuana, all of those “criminals” will receive pardons under the new legal pot law.
Photo from 'Reefer Madness' via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
