The New Model for a Health-First Approach to Legalizing Weed

Recreational marijuana will no longer be a priority for Canada’s criminal-justice system. This week the Senate passed legislation that will make the country the second in the world to strictly regulate weed—but technically legalize it—beginning in October. The first was Uruguay, so Canada is the first major economy, and an experimental model for the rest of the world that will inform policy for decades to come.

Canada’s approach offers much promise from a health perspective. “This is the most well deliberated and crafted legalization legislation in the world,” says Andrew Freedman, who led the creation of a regulatory framework for Colorado’s marijuana legalization. “Canada approached the creation of the production, management, and distribution with a public-health lens. I’m excited to see what