By Benjie Cooper
IG: @nuglifenews
YouTube: Lucid’s Vlog
Midnight marked the beginning of the legal cannabis market in Canada. The country is now the second in the world, and the first G7 nation, to legalize marijuana.
But as people across the provinces can now freely plant, purchase, and partake under the new law, individuals who ran into legal entanglements over cannabis in the past can expect to have those interactions suspended from their records.
“We will be introducing a new law to make things fairer for Canadians who have been convicted for possession of cannabis,” said Goodale in a press conference Wednesday morning. “It becomes a matter of basic fairness when older laws from a previous era are changed.”
Depending on the crime, Canadians must currently wait three to ten years before applying for a pardon and pay $631. When enacted, the new legislation will automatically apply to eligible individuals and cost them nothing.
But some took the news with cautious optimism.
“Record suspensions or pardons are insufficient,” said Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty director, Annamaria Enenajor in a statement. “They do not erase a convicted offence; they merely set it aside. Without expungement, individuals convicted of possession remain vulnerable to having their convictions reinstated.”
The Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty said that they forward to working with the government and reviewing any legislation to accomplish cannabis amnesty in a timely manner.
The estimated number of Canadian citizens with cannabis convictions on their records is over 500,000.
