Since yesterday, October 17th marijuana is legal to grow, sell and to buy throughout Canada. Doesn’t matter if you are using it or not, cannabis is coming, it is already here and as of today, it is sold in your local stores and online. People are still debating if it is good for Canada, what effect will it have on the youth and if it was the right decision to legalize it, we have to face the fact – cannabis is legal. When the federal government legalized cannabis earlier this year, it left the provinces in charge of how the drug will be sold and where consumers can smoke it. Some things are mostly constant across the country: You can’t buy cannabis if you’re under 18 (though you may have to be 19 in some provinces), you can grow up to four plants at home (except in Manitoba and Quebec, where you can’t) and you’ll be able to carry up to 30 grams outside your residence.
Local stores opened early morning in Winnipeg, online stores started to take orders at midnight, most of the stores were sold out in one day. The store owners were counting on a one week supply, but it was out in less than a day, so they had to restock fast to be ready for the next day. Winnipeg cannabis store, Delta 9, showed on its website at 4 a.m. Wednesday that marijuana products were completely sold out. The store had 100 orders in the first minute, said Gary Symons, Delta 9’s communications director, and they sold $50,000 worth of product in the first hour.
“We had about $1.7 million worth of inventory to get us through what we’re hoping is at least the first week or two before we can restock,” CEO John Arbuthnot said. “I was on the phone with our inventory guys at 2:45 a.m. and they are putting in more purchases… we are going to do the best we can to fill the pipeline and keep it filled.”
To remind you some of the key points of the new law:
You can also share up to 30 grams of cannabis with other adults.
The act also stipulates that people can buy “dried or fresh cannabis or cannabis oil” from provincially-licensed retailers; where there aren’t brick-and-mortar retailers, you can buy it online from “federally-licensed producers.” People can likewise grow up to four cannabis plants per home from “licensed seed or seedlings.” They can also make cannabis-infused food and drinks at home, “as long as organic solvents are not used to create concentrated products.”
The act, however, severely restricts underage people from possessing cannabis. You could face a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail if you give or sell cannabis to a youth, or if you use a youth to commit a “cannabis-related offense.” These are new criminal offenses.