![Recreational marijuana becomes legal in Canada](https://www.jurist.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/03/shutterstock_657639088.jpg)
A Canadian law took effect on Wednesday legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational consumption.
The Cannabis Act will “provide legal access to cannabis” and “control and regulate its production, distribution and sale.” Anyone over the 18 is legally permitted to possess at most 30 grams of cannabis. People in Canada are also permitted to grow their own plants and can engage in e-commerce to purchase cannabis. In enacting the bill, the government hopes “to prevent young person from accessing cannabis, to protect public health and public safety by establishing strict product safety and product quality requirements and to deter criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework.”
The enactment of the bill officially makes Canada the second country to legalize the recreational use of cannabis at the national level, following Uruguay.
Canada hopes to use the taxes generated from sales to fund research into the medical effects of cannabis.