In 2012, Washington State voted to legalize marijuana. By 2014, the world’s first system for legally growing, processing and retailing cannabis was operating.

As Canada prepares to go live with pot sales in a few months, what can we learn from four years of practical, hands-on experience in the western United States?

The first take-away is that all the fretting about the impact on children and teens is largely unwarranted.

Before legalization, 17 per cent of Grade 10 students in Washington State said they had smoked pot in the previous month. Four years of legal doobies later, 17 per cent of Grade 10 students say they have smoked pot in the previous month.

If you can’t beat ’em, tax ’em

45

Total number of tax increases on beer in Canada since 2010

47 per cent

The average portion of the cost of a case of beer that goes to taxes

50,000

Canadians who have signed on to Beer Canada’s ‘Axe the Beer Tax’ campaign

10 per cent

The per-capita decline in beer sales over the past decade

Those impressive statistics are brought to you by Canada’s brewers. It’s no surprise, then, that they’re fretting over the pending legalization of marijuana, and urging the federal government to make us pay more in taxes.

New penalties under provincial Highway Traffic Act coming ahead of legal cannabis.

A significant aspect of dealing with legalized cannabis for recreational use is tied to policing and enforcement.

There is already a ban on drug-impaired driving under the Criminal Code of Canada, as RNC Const. Karen Didham noted while speaking with reporters about cannabis Monday at the Confederation Building.

Didham is a certified drug recognition evaluator — a key part of investigating those cases where there is possible driving under the influence of drugs.

“I’ve been testing specifically for drug-impaired driving for the last 12 years,” she said, explaining it begins when police have reason to believe a driver might have been exposed to drugs.

Four pieces of legislation detail province’s personal-use rules, which will allow homegrown marijuana.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has introduced more of its plans for the legalization of cannabis, including allowing the growing of plants at home.

Four pieces of legislation were revealed Monday and are being debated this week — the last week scheduled for the spring session of the House of Assembly.

“I expect it’s going to be a very long week in the House,” Progressive Conservative MHA Paul Davis said after highlighting some of his lingering questions to reporters, while raising more later in the day on the House floor.

"I have smoked marijuana when I was 18 years old."

Conservative Sen. Don Plett told a Senate committee Monday that he smoked marijuana 50 years ago and is now concerned he may be barred entry into the United States if a border agent asks.

The Manitoba senator made the admission as the government's pot czar, Liberal MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, appeared at the Senate's social affairs, science, and technology committee. The group is tasked with reviewing the government's marijuana legalization bill, clause by clause.

"Hope you give us your phone number that we can call you from the border," Plett said to Blair.

The federal government’s point man on the legalization of cannabis is preemptively rejecting any attempt by the Senate to delay the launch of the recreational market for the drug.

Liberal MP Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the ministers of health and justice, told a Senate committee on Mondaymore work will be needed in coming months to deal with the consequences of legalization on Native and other at-risk communities.

However, he said the legislation is needed to quickly launch a strictly regulated market for recreational cannabis that will put an end to the current regime based on prohibition.

'Cannabis is not coffee,' says justice minister, arguing there isn't a market to support private sales.

Members of the Northwest Territories legislative assembly focused on private cannabis sales as they publicly debated individual sections of Bill 6 — the territory's proposed Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Implementation Act — Monday morning.

The debate was part of a clause-by-clause review of the bill undertaken by the assembly's standing committees on social development and government operations before the bill is voted on in the Legislative Assembly. That vote is expected to come during the current sitting of the Legislative Assembly, which began on May 24.

When non-profit developer Options for Homes launches its latest development The Humber this summer, it will bring something new to the market: a "Smoke Less" condo building that will restrict the consumption of tobacco and cannabis to vapourizers. 

The move is part of Options' commitment to creating a predominantly family friendly condo, which is reflected in the condo's suite mix, two-thirds of which are 2- and 3-bedroom suites suitable for families.

The Humber's comprehensive and thoughtful "Smoke Less" takes into account both the desire by many families to live in smoke-free buildings while also respecting homeowners' lifestyle choices to consume nicotine and cannabis products. It also addresses the forthcoming legalization of cannabis in Canada this year.

One of Canada’s biggest cannabis production companies has passed another milestone with the establishment of its 10th licensed production facility.

Canopy Growth Corp. of Smiths Falls announced it has partnered with Montreal-area tomato greenhouse operator Les Serres Stéphane Bertrand to grow cannabis for the Quebec market.

The new joint venture, called Les Serres Vert Cannabis, received a cultivation licence from Health Canada on May 25. Les Serres Stéphane Bertrand, which grows organic tomatoes, will convert its 700,000-square-foot greenhouse in Mirabel, Que., into a cannabis production facility that’s initially licensed to grow pot on 40,000 square feet of space.

Investors may have anticipated a rally in Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX:WEED)(NYSE:CGC) stock on May 24, as the eldest-listed Canadian cannabis company’s equity units debuted trading on the New York Stock Exchange, but there wasn’t to be as much joy for its investors as there was for Cronos Group Inc. (TSX:CRON)(NASDAQ:CRON) investors when it listed on the NASDAQ market in February. Cronos Group stock rallied as much as 36% in its first week of trading the NASDAQ, as American investors welcomed a marijuana listing on a major U.S. exchange for the first time ever, and it was to be expected that…