A man smokes a marijuana joint during the annual 4/20 celebration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, April 20, 2018. (Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Senate approves cannabis legislation but with dozens of amendments

The Canadian Senate voted on Thursday to approve the Trudeau government’s landmark legislation legalizing recreational cannabis and sent it back to the House of Commons with nearly four dozen amendments.

The upper house passed Bill C-45 by a vote of 56 to 30 with one abstention, despite strong opposition by Conservative senators.

There were also concerns by Indigenous senators that Trudeau’s Liberal Party had not properly consulted with Aboriginal communities already struggling with high rates of substance abuse and mental health issues.

The Indigenous senators eventually decided to support the legislation after the government sent a letter promising to present a full report to Parliament in September on how it is addressing the concerns of Aboriginal communities and another within 12 months.

The House of Commons will now have to decide whether to accept or modify the changes made by the unelected senators before returning the bill back to the Senate for another vote.

If the legislation is passed, Canada’s ten provinces and three northern territories will need up to three months before going ahead with retail sales of legal cannabis, Health Minister said.

A general view of cannabis plants are shown in a grow room at Up Cannabis Inc., Newstrike Resources marijuana greenhouses, in Brantford, Ont. on Tuesday, January 16, 2018. (Chris Young/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

One of the more contentious amendments by the Senate would allow the provinces and territories to ban home cultivation of cannabis. The initial Liberal plan allowed individuals aged 18 and older to grow four marijuana plants in their own home for personal use.

Other amendments include more stringent rules for advertising and marketing cannabis and cannabis-related products and promotional merchandise such as T-shirts and baseball caps.

Legalizing cannabis for recreational use was one of Trudeau’s key campaign promises. The government argues legalization is the only way to undercut the multi-billion dollar illicit marijuana industry currently controlled by organized crime groups.

Independent Sen. Andre Pratte, a former journalist and author, said it’s clear the current system is not working.

“Thirty-two per cent. That is the percentage of Canadians aged 20 to 24 who have used cannabis in the last three months, according to the Statistics Canada survey published last April,” Pratt said. “This, after a century of prohibition and hundreds of thousands of criminal charges.”

Conservative senators predicted that Canadians will eventually regret the decision to legalize recreational marijuana.

“Legalization should be a last resort if incremental approaches to address cannabis-related harms fail,” said Conservative Sen. Judith Seidman. “Instead, the government has chosen to conduct a grand experiment on the Canadian public, an experiment that cannot be undone.”

Bill C-45 is the ninth government bill to be sent back to the House since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began filling the Senate with independent senators, instead of appointing senators based on party affiliation as had been the tradition before.

For example, between 2011 and 2015, the Conservative-dominated Senate sent back just one bill.

With files from CBC News

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