What does Cannabis Legalization Mean for Canada?

October 16th, 2018 – For Immediate Release.

On the eve of federal cannabis legalization, many are questioning what this all means for Canada and Canadians. In May 2018 the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada held a major international conference on the policy challenges surrounding marijuana legalization in Canada. The conference attracted close to two hundred participants from academic, industry, government, and civil society.

The papers collected in High Time: The Legalization and Regulation of Cannabis in Canada, forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s in March 2019, are the result of that conference.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

High Time
The Legalization and Regulation of Cannabis in Canada

Edited by Andrew Potter and Daniel Weinstock

It took Canada fifty years to reform its marijuana laws. Did it get them right?

Social policy, politics

Canada will become the first G7 country to legalize cannabis, and the world is watching. The primary concern facing the Liberal government as it seeks to fulfill its 2015 campaign promise to “legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana” is whether it can be done without making the situation worse. As the Liberal platform pointed out, the current regime lets illegal cannabis fall into the hands of minors, pours large profits into organized crime, and traps many people in the criminal justice system for what is arguably a victimless crime.

While the legalization of marijuana in Canada begins with a straightforward change of the criminal code, its ramifications go far beyond this. Legalization will have a serious impact on the country’s international treaty commitments, interprovincial relations, taxation and regulatory regimes, and social and health policies. The essays in this book address these outcomes from three main perspectives: the decades-long political path to legalization; the assumptions that underwrite the new policy, in particular the desire to stamp out the black market; and how legalization in Canada looks from an international perspective.

Bringing together analysis by policy makers and scholars, including architects of marijuana legislation in Uruguay and Portugal – two trailblazing jurisdictions – High Time provides an urgent and necessary overview of Canada’s Cannabis Act.

Andrew Potter is a journalist and academic who teaches at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

Daniel Weinstock is a professor in the McGill Faculty of Law.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION:

Of all the promises made by the Liberals during the 2015 electoral campaign, marijuana legalization seemed, at first glance, to be the easiest to achieve. Whereas electoral reform, which ended up being abandoned early on by the Trudeau-led government, raised a host of issues both technical and constitutional, ending a prohibitionist regime with respect to marijuana which has clearly failed to meet its objectives over the years seemed comparatively easy. All you needed to do to legalize marijuana, it would seem, is, well, to legalize marijuana. That is, you just have to eliminate the criminal prohibitions against it that presently exist.

This is a case where first appearances would have been enormously misleading. The legalization of marijuana in Canada turns out to be a hugely complex and risky venture, one that raises serious concerns, and that will continue to elicit controversy, across a wide range of policy domains that cut across federal, provincial, and municipal jurisdictions. …

Given the stakes associated with legalization, in terms of public health, of public finances, of public safety, and the like, it is important nonetheless that Canada get this right, or at the very least, that it not get it too awfully wrong. The papers collected here look at the present palette of policies that will be enacted by different levels of government, and attempt to determine where changes might have to be made. It will be important, however, that researchers devote intensive research to the impacts of the laws that will go into effect after October 17, 2018, in order to provide decision-makers with evidence through which to guide the evolution of policy in what will most likely be a highly volatile and fluid policy domain.

Editors Daniel Weinstock & Andrew Potter have this to say on the eve on legalization:

“The regulatory landscape as legalization day approaches is still something of a mess. Municipal, provincial and federal regulations do not mesh smoothly. The change in government in Quebec and Ontario means that the set-up in Canada’s two largest provinces is still a work in progress. The next few months, perhaps even years, will see a lot of adjustments and changes to the welter of rules and policies through which marijuana legalization will be realized. This is still very fluid policy terrain.” – Daniel Weinstock

“Even as Canada finds itself thrown into the mess of conflicting interests, overlapping jurisdictions, and policy uncertainties that go along with cannabis legalization, it will be hard to avoid having a conversation about two other issues. First, the federal government has to put the question of pardons or expungement of pre-existing convictions on the table as soon as possible. It will become increasingly intolerable to have people with criminal records left over the previous legal regime. Second, it will be interesting to see how long we can avoid a more difficult conversation about not just cannabis, but all drugs, including opioids. Can across-the-board decriminalization be far behind?” – Andrew Potter

For more information on the book, or to request on interview with the editors please contact:

Jacqui Davis, Publicist
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Tel. – (514) 398-2555
Email – Jacqueline.davis@mcgill.ca
Web – www.mqup.ca