Outcomes associated with nonmedical cannabis legalization policy in Canada: taking stock at the 5-year mark

The authors describe reduced cannabis-related arrests as a success of cannabis legalization in Canada. However, this reduction could have been achieved with decriminalization decades earlier, much more efficiently, and probably more completely. At the very least, it could have been achieved expeditiously in 2016 as a legislated interim objective on the path to legalization.
In the mid-1990s, The Liberal Party of Canada formally endorsed decriminalization of cannabis and introduced legislation towards that end (1). Despite the Party holding a majority government for a continuous decade, decriminalization did not happen. At the same time, many other nations and sub-national jurisdictions in the United States found a way. In Canada, cannabis users continued to be arrested for minor cannabis offences and suffer the consequences of life-long criminal records.
Fast-forward to June 2016. The federal New Democrat Party introduced a motion (including a viable legal framework) to the House of Commons to promptly decriminalize cannabis possession while the government continued to work towards legalization. Liberal and Progressive Conservative Party votes soundly defeated the motion (2).
We can apply a principle from emergency medicine: first, stop the bleeding. While the government took more than another two years to build the complex structure of a new legal, commercial drug industry, more Canadians received criminal records. The bleeding, in the case of cannabis law reform, was this continuing social justice tragedy.
Five years after legalization, the Liberal government has still failed to provide a viable mechanism for expungement of past minor cannabis offences. These various events represent the abandonment of decades of social justice advocacy in favor of creating a new lucrative cannabis industry. At a press conference announcing the government’s Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation, a government spokesperson’s response to a journalist’s question was starkly candid: “…decriminalization does not meet any of our objectives.” (3) The Final Report of the Task Force was equally dismissive, “While there are likely to be calls for special measures during this period, such as decriminalization of cannabis, governments should focus on the long-term success of the system.” 4(p51) There was apparently no appetite for compassion. This was business.
The reduction of cannabis arrests that finally followed legalization is not so much a contemporary social justice or drug policy success as it is an indictment of decades of inhumane drug policy in Canada that unfavorably distinguished it from many other nations. The decline in cannabis arrests does not appear to have been a priority in Canada’s cannabis legalization – perhaps more of a desirable side-effect. Yes, cannabis users can rest much easier these days. But we should not give The Cannabis Act, The Canadian Government, or The Liberal Party of Canada a gold star for this.