【1999 Archives】

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau999 Archivestrying to change the maple leaf at the center of his nation's flag into a pot leaf.

That's not true. Although you could see how it might happen? There's a leaf there already? Anyway, for real, Trudeau's march to legal recreational weed has officially begun.

The prime minister revealed legislation on Thursday that would make it legal to recreationally smoke marijuana across Canada.

There are roughly one bajillion details to figure out before Canadians will be able to purchase weed and smoke up just like people buy alcohol and drink, but this is where it starts. If successful, Canada and Uruguay would be the only countries to completely legalize recreational pot as a consumer product across their nations. Others have decriminalized it or effectively stopped enforcing laws against it.

There's still a lot to do: the bill needs to become law; each province has to figure out how people will go about buying marijuana; and marketing regulations will have to be standardized. A number of questions will need to be answered, including how the advertising will work. Will it be sold like cigarettes or like alcohol or neither?

Plus people are probably going to get too high to drive but will drive anyway, so the government will have to figure out how to test drivers the same way breathalyzers test blood-alcohol content. Provinces will also have to set prices and purchasing age minimums (the federal minimum will be 18, though provinces can make it higher) and government officials will have to figure out how to comply with drug treaties that they may or may not violate with legalization.

So the Canadian government's got a few things to figure out. But the bill is expected to pass, meaning soon most Canadians over the age of 18 will be able to buy weed, and households will be able to grow up to four plants.

Now see if United States President Donald Trump doesn't have to build another border wall just to keep people in.

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