Canada legalizes marijuana Country is now world’s largest pot marketplace
Cannabis products are shown inside a Cannabis NB retail store in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on Tuesday. STEPHEN MACGILLIVRAY/THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP
Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton, left to right, poses with the receipt for the first legal cannabis for recreation use sold in Canada to Nikki Rose and Ian Power at the Tweed shop on Water Street in St. John's N.L. at 12:01 am NDT on Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
A depiction of a cannabis bud hangs from the ceiling as a band plays at Leafly's countdown party in Toronto, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, as they prepare to mark the legalization of Cannabis across Canada. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
Ian Power is first in line at the Tweed store on Water Street in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. He said he hopes to make history and buy the first legal cannabis for recreational use in Canada after midnight. The Canadian government is ready to pardon those with a pot possession record of 30 grams or less after Canada becomes the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace Wednesday. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
Members of the media attend a preview for one of Quebec's new cannabis stores in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct.1 6, 2018. Canada will become the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace when sales begin on midnight Wednesday. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2018, file photo, Thomas Clarke poses for a photo outside his cannabis store, THC Distribution, in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador. On Wednesday, Oct. 17, Canada becomes the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace. Clarke will be among the first to legally sell so-called recreational marijuana when his shop opens at midnight. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
Members of the media attend a preview for one of Quebec's new cannabis stores in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct.1 6, 2018. Canada will become the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace when sales begin on midnight Wednesday. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
Members of the media attend a preview for one of Quebec's new cannabis stores in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct.1 6, 2018. Canada will become the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace when sales begin on midnight Wednesday. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
A depiction of a cannabis bud hangs from the ceiling at a band plays at Leafly's countdown party in Toronto Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, as they prepare to mark the legalization of Cannabis across Canada. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
Ian Power, left, who is first in line at the Tweed store talks with Jeff Ryan, right, Vice President of Government & Stakeholder Relations for Tweed in St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador, on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Ryan outlines the procedure to Power, regarding buying the first legal cannabis for recreational use in Canada after midnight. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
Local and International media set up as a small line starts to form in front of the Tweed store on Water Street in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. The Canadian government is ready to pardon those with a pot possession record of 30 grams or less after Canada becomes the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace Wednesday. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
The point of sale area inside a Cannabis NB retail store is shown in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (Stephen MacGillivray/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton, left to right, passes a bag with the first legal cannabis for recreation use sold in Canada to Nikki Rose and Ian Power at the Tweed shop on Water Street in St. John's N.L. at 12:01 am NDT on Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
An estimated 400 people were in line to purchase cannabis at the Tweed retail store on Water Street, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, when it became legal after midnight local time on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. Newfoundland and Labrador regulations have the store closing at 2:00 a.m. local time. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)
TORONTO (AP) — Ian Power was among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Canada but he has no plans to smoke it. He plans to frame it.
Canada became the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace as sales began early Wednesday in Newfoundland. Power was first in line at a store in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
“I am going to frame it and hang it on my wall. I’m not even going to smoke it. I’m just going to save it forever,” Power said.
And there was more good news for pot aficionados: Hours before a handful of retail outlets opened in the country’s easternmost province a federal official told The Associated Press that Canada will pardon all those with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the now-legal threshold.
A formal announcement was planned for later Wednesday.
Canada has had legal medical marijuana since 2001 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has spent two years working toward expanding that to include recreational marijuana. The goal is to better reflect society’s changing opinion about marijuana and bring black market operators into a regulated system.
Uruguay was first was the first country to legalize marijuana.
In St. John’s, Newfoundland, hundreds of customers were lined up around the block at the private store on Water Street, the main commercial drag in the provincial capital, by the time the clock struck midnight.
“Prohibition has ended right now. We just made history,” said the 46-year-old Power, who bought a gram. “I can’t believe we did it. All the years of activism paid off. “
Tom Clarke, an illegal pot dealer for three decades, was among the first to make a legal sale in Canada when his store opened at midnight local time in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland. He made the first sale to his dad.
“This is awesome. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,” Clarke said. “I am so happy to be living in Canada right now instead of south of the border.”
The Newfoundland stores are among at least 111 legal pot shops expected to open across the nation of 37 million people on Wednesday, with many more to come, according to an Associated Press survey of the provinces.
Canadians also can order marijuana products through websites run by provinces or private retailers and have it delivered to their homes by mail.
Alberta and Quebec have set the minimum age for purchase at 18, while others have made it 19.
Canada’s national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis and billions of dollars in investment — a sharp contrast with national prohibition in the United States.
Nine U.S. states have legalized recreational use of pot, and more than 30 have approved medical marijuana. California, the largest legal market in the U.S., earlier this month became the first state with a law mandating expungement of criminal convictions for marijuana-related offenses that no are longer illegal.
