Health Protection Branch

The Canadian constitution severely limits both federal and provincial legislative responses to cannabis. The innovative cannabis control regimes adopted in some Western European and several American states are incompatible with the unique division of legislative powers that characterizes our constitution. It is necessary, then, to briefly examine Parliament's and the provinces' constitutional jurisdiction to enact cannabis legislation. The problem of whether Parliament can create a non-criminal (or "civil") offence and control provincial police and court records will also be explored.