Long-time proponent fears harsh 'Harperesque' restrictions on cannabis.

High-profile pot activist Jodie Emery wants a seat on the federal task force on legalizing marijuana.

She worries the panel will be stacked with "prohibitionists" who will push for overly restrictive regulations that would limit access to legal cannabis. 

​Emery has written to Bill Blair, the parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, outlining her credentials for the job, including years of research, advocacy and political campaigning.

A regulated medical cannabis industry needs to evolve to provide users with accurate biochemical information on all cannabis-containing products.

The Canadian government last week announced that cannabis will be legalised and regulated from spring next year.

George Murkin, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, says that it's time the UK followed suit.

Who should control the production and supply of drugs : Governments or gangsters? That’s the choice that politicians face – there’s no third option in which drugs don’t exist. Unlike the UK, Canada has recognised this reality.

The country’s health minister announced last week that the Canadian­ government will bring the cannabis trade under their control, by legalising and regulating it in spring next year.

As the federal government puts together a task force on marijuana legalization, Health Minister Jane Philpott isn’t saying no to pot activists taking part.

“I’m not ruling anything out,” Philpott said from the Liberal cabinet retreat in Kananaskis, Alberta.

But Philpott also made a point of saying experts would come from move conventional categories.

“It’ll be experts as I said in the past, in health care, experts in addiction care, public safety and justice,” she said. “Those’ll be the main categories that we’re looking at.”

Longtime pot activist Jodie Emery has sent a letter to Philpott and other cabinet ministers as well Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requesting a spot on the task force.

I have just watched the closing plenary session of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem here in New York. Presidents and Prime Ministers will now move on to the climate change summit that opens tomorrow, and the thousands of government and NGO delegates who have filled the UN building in Manhattan over the last 3 days will catch their flights back to all corners of the globe. So was it worth it – three years of preparation, tens of millions of dollars of travel and meeting costs, and countless hours of debate and negotiation. Is the international community any better placed to reduce the health, social and economic problems associated with illicit drug markets?

Canada won’t decriminalize marijuana before legalizing in 2017.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his Liberal government will not decriminalize marijuana possession before moving to fully legalize the drug in 2017, as reported by The Huffington Post Canada.

It’s an odd coincidence that I’m writing this article around 4:20 p.m. on 4/20 from Vancouver — 4/20 being common urban slang for marijuana consumption that has now morphed into a cultural trademark for those who wish to decriminalize it and draw political attention on April 20 each year.

For years, people from all over Vancouver have been gathering on Robson Street in front of the art gallery steps (and across from the courthouse) at 4:20 p.m. on April 20 to brazenly light up (or in some cases, eat) their marijuana in full sight of the police and close enough to the Provincial Court, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the Court of Appeal that the annual celebration/protest/public relations exercise can’t go unnoticed by the judiciary — or the TV cameras.

'It’s clear society has evolved,' says the CEO of OrganiGram, who predicts $200 million per year in annual production.

Denis Arsenault hosted an important visitor the other day at his Moncton offices, a moment that revealed much about his company’s grand ambitions.

Arsenault is CEO of OrganiGram, producer of Canada’s only organic medical marijuana, and the only licensed grower east of Ontario.

His visitor was Brian Gallant, the boyish, 33-year-old premier of New Brunswick, who came to offer wage subsidies to help the company expand.

Arsenault, whose company aims to get a running start on a legalized recreational marijuana market, did not miss the irony of Gallant’s visit.

WeedMD Rx Inc is pleased to announce that Health Canada has officially licenced the company to cultivate medical cannabis for patients across Canada. The approval is in accordance with the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), a set of regulations enacted by parliament in July 2013 concerning the production, distribution and use of medical cannabis in Canada and also pursuant to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act of Canada.

The license will allow the Company to immediately begin cultivation of medical marihuana in its fully expandable 25,000 square foot facility located at the former Imperial Tobacco plant in Aylmer, Ontario.

The emphasis on the need to legalize marijuana to keep it out of the hands of youth has been a common theme for the Liberal party since they formally adopted a legalization policy in 2015.

While traditionally many legalization activists have lobbied for a repeal of prohibition because of what is often described as the relative harmlessness of marijuana, especially in relation to other legal drugs like alcohol or tobacco, the current government’s approach arguably seeks to achieve many of the same ends prohibition has attempted to achieve.