By Alex Halperin // April 17, 2017
As a member of the Liberal Party, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to legalize cannabis during his 2015 campaign. But he had been contemplating the issue for far longer. In a 2013 interview with the Huffington Post, Trudeau admitted to sneaking a puff while a sitting member of Parliament. Then, last week, Trudeau released legislation that would make Canada the first industrialized nation to legalize marijuana. If it passes Parliament, which is widely expected, marijuana will be legally available across the vast nation by mid-2018.
While recreational marijuana for adult use is legal in eight U.S. states, and a growing tolerance of weed has cushioned the legalization announcement's impact, Canada's announcement is a major milestone for the legalization movement and big questions remain unanswered. Here, a what you need to know about recreational weed in Canada, and what that might mean for Americans.
How did Canada get here?
Canada legalized medical marijuana in 2001. Since then, the industry has evolved in a staid way. Producers grow their crops in enormous warehouses and directly send product to patients by mail or courier service. Medical marijuana companies raise money by going public on the stock exchange, just like normal businesses. Dispensaries are still illegal in Canada, though they've been tolerated in some areas.
CONTINUE READING
by Alex Halperin // June 1, 2016
Cameras rolling, Richard Haines pitches his business: MDHerb, a website for medical marijuana patients to share their experiences with various products. He's looking for $150,000 in exchange for about 12 percent of the company. He says MDHerb is "a collaborative community" that lets patients "keep journal entries of what they're consuming and how cannabis is affecting their conditions."
Haines is auditioning for the third season of the online series The Marijuana Show. The setup is similar to the ABC reality show Shark Tank, which milks the face-off between hopeful entrepreneurs and calculating investors into compelling television. But The Marijuana Show only considers companies involved in the legal cannabis industry.
Haines, a clean-cut 31-year-old with a neat beard, is a colon cancer survivor and a Crohn's disease patient. He says he's spent a third of his life in the hospital. During his pitch, he pulls up his black "I'm a patient" t-shirt to show off the surgical scars on his "frankenbelly." Projected on the wall behind him is The Marijuana Show's logo: George Washington enjoying a joint.
As he pitches, Wendy Robbins and Karen Paull, who created, produce and host The Marijuana Show, cheer him on. "Speak from your heart, not from your head," Robbins says. She wants Haines to adopt a Twitter-ready pitch for MDHerb and suggests he sell it as the "Wikipedia for cannabis," though the analogy is inexact.
CONTINUE READING.