The government is not proposing to make cannabis legal for minors. The task force that made recommendations last November suggested 18 years of age as a federal minimum, and allowing the provinces to set their minimum age higher, perhaps the same as they have set it for alcohol.

What prevents students from smoking cannabis in class is not the criminal law. It is and will remain illegal to drive while one is impaired by any substance, legal or illegal.

Cannabis is an economic substitute for alcohol, opiates and other psychoactive substances, such that when cannabis use goes up, drinking and opiate use goes down. For example, opiate overdose deaths have dropped 25 per cent on average where cannabis is legal for medicinal purposes.