The Canadian government intends to legalize cannabis by July 1, 2018, making adult recreational marijuana use legal throughout Canada. This change does not mean all cannabis will be legal; only marijuana produced by federally licensed entities will be. Ottawa's licensing regime will ensure that all lawful cannabis is, in effect, medical grade, free of microbial contamination, toxins and other illicit substances sometimes found in "street" marijuana.

A principal objective of the new regime is to eliminate the black market distribution of cannabis. Unfortunately, as currently conceived, the new regime may fall well short of that objective.

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