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Canadian History 2000-2030
Bill C-45: The Cannabis Act
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The First Proposal
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Since 2012, the Liberal Party had been proposing the legalization of marijuana as a
recreational drug. Since 2001, it had been used medicinally in order to relieve pain for
terminally-ill patients and to alleviate conditions such as arthritis. As the years went by,
people started to grow increasingly comfortable with the idea of its legalization, and Justin
Trudeau eventually turned it into a reality in October of 2018 after he was elected prime
minister.
On the 13th of April in 2017, the bill was introduced by minister of justice Jody WilsonRaybould. The bill allowed for the national use of Marijuana by individuals over 18 years of
age and legal posession of a maximum of 30 grams. Provinces could further restrict these
laws if they wished to.
Canada's Gameplan
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Cannabis has become a growing industry in Canada since its legalization. Many vendors who
were selling illegally for upwards of 25 years now ran their own shops and own their own
legitimate businesses in Canada after the sale of Cannabis became recreational. The Canadian
government opted for legalization in order to penalize those who operated illegally, to reduce
Cannabis' association with hard drugs, to lower the burden on the justice system, to restrict
youth access to Cannabis, and create a way to ensure that safer, non-laced Cannabis was
being given to those who could legally consume it.
It was Trudeau's way to solve the problem that Cannabis was having on Canada, after realizing
that prohibition was doing very little to fix it. Before legalization, Cannabis was fueling illegal
activity, being distributed to children through underground markets, and being laced with
impurities and hard drugs to keep people addicted.
Societal Effect
Cannabis has been an instant hit to the economy as well ever since it was taken under the wing
of the federal government. In 2018, the same year recreational Cannabis was allowed to be
sold legally, businesses constributed almost 50 billion dollars to Canada's GDP, and attracted
droves of American tourists who weren't able to legally buy marijuana where they lived.
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The Canadian population has been warming
up to the idea of consuming cannabis in the
years following its legalization. A larger
percentage of youth and young adults have
reported to have consumed Marijuana since
2017, when Canada first started to track its
use.
Awareness of Marijuana's effects have also
been spread around through word of mouth;
In a 2022 survey from Statistics Canada, 52%
of Canadians have reported being exposed to
educational media regarding Cannabis, and
more than 80% of them understand
Cannabis' negative effects on pubescent
children as well as the risks of inhaling
cannabis fumes.
For years, the Canadian government has
been pushing the negative effects of
Cannabis on mental health that often
remains in the shadow of the more prominent
concenrns of the drug.
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3.7
Canadian History 2000-2030
Bill C-45: The Cannabis Act
Fighting Drug Use
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A snippet of a Canadian Government PSA about driving
while high (Marijuana use is implied with a bong).
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The new approach to drug abuse in Canada is highly
symbolic of the shift towards prevention and treatment
rather than punishment. When other countries, such as the
US and Switzerland, tried to carry out a fully hostile "war on
drugs," drug use actually increased because cartels,
smuggling rings, and huge underground markets were
created to fight the efforts of the DEA. If there was money
to be made, people found a way to make it despite the legal
roadblock. Canada knew this, and decided to follow a
proactive way to solve the problem. Creating PSAs to
increase public knowledge of Marijuana's dangers to youth,
the decriminalization of its use, and the emphasis on the
fact that addiction is possible but treatment is available.
Notably, Switzerland also decriminalized many drugs after
seeing the benefits of active treatment over punishment.
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Canadian Economy and Criminal Justice
Cannabis, since its legalization, had been contributing positively to the Canadian economy for years. 151,000 new jobs were created since 2018 as a
result of the emergence of this new industry, and over 40,000 of those jobs have a direct correlation to the sale of Cannabis. It has generated over
$15 billion in tax revenue, cleverly converting illegal sellers and dealers into shop owners who contribute to the Canadian economy.
The justice system had also had a large weight lifted off of its shoulders. Cannabis had been illegal since 1908 when it was added to the Opium and
Drugs Act. At the time, hardly anyone consumed Cannabis, but the main cause of its addition to the ban of drugs was suspected to be because of
racialized hate and xenophobia towards minority groups, who were poorer and found themselves using opioids and other drugs much more.
The ban on Marijuana had been a somewhat racially motivated one at first. It had only started to gain traction in the late 1960s, and so studies were
conducted on it. Even as early as 1972, the government realized that Cannabis posed a relatively small bodily threat compared to opioids and that its
regulation was costing the country a ridiculous amount of money. That fact had been in the back of Canada's mind until the 21st century when illegal
Cannabis sales boomed and xenophobia was reletively wiped out. It was simply too much for the justice system to regulate effectively, and so it was
legalized. The discriminatory nature of its original ban, therefore, led to discussion of legalization as racist ideologies left Canadian society.
Canadians are allowed to make beer at home or wine and some
Canadians grow tobacco... and we absolutely believe that the
legislation should be consistent when it comes to recreational
cannabis.
Ginette Petitpas-Taylor
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C-45 marks a wholesale shift in how our country approaches cannabis. It
leaves behind a failed model of prohibition, a model that has made
organized crime rich and left our young people vulnerable.
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Jody Wilson-Raybould