Four years after becoming the first developed nation to legalize cannabis for recreational use, Canada began a long-awaited review of its cannabis legislation on Thursday. The effects of legalization on youth, Indigenous peoples, and other groups, as well as the economy and an illegal market that the new regime was intended to replace, will be evaluated by an expert panel headed by Morris Rosenberg, a former deputy minister of justice.
The group will also examine the industry’s regulatory hurdles and evaluate if a distinct structure for medicinal marijuana, which has been authorized since 2001, is still necessary to preserve patient access.
The mandated review is expected to take 18 months
The required evaluation, which was delayed by a year because of the pandemic, is predicted to take 18 months. The cannabis sector has voiced concerns about what it refers to as unusually high cannabis taxes, an abundance of licensed and unlicensed stores, and limitations on advertising and promotion that have made it more difficult to compete with the black market.
The health minister for Canada, Jean-Yves Duclos, stated at a news conference that preliminary statistics this year showed that 69% of the cannabis market has switched from illegal to legal, regulated suppliers. The government will be able to “strengthen the (cannabis) act so that it fulfills the requirements of all Canadians while continuing to displace the illicit market.”
“We recognized that young people are at heightened risk of experiencing harms from cannabis”
Addictions minister Carolyn Bennett said, “We knew that young people are at increased risk of experiencing harms from cannabis, such as mental health problems including dependence and disorders related to anxiety and depression.”
Public awareness campaigns, she said, have made “young people more aware of the harms of consuming cannabis,” but their level of consumption has not fallen since legalization, as hoped. Instead, it has remained relatively stable, she said. According to government data, 25 percent of the population, or 9.5 million Canadians, used cannabis in 2021, down slightly from the previous year.