2300 BC: According to the contents of wooden bowls excavated from a burial mound, people in what is now Northwestern China are burning cannabis and inhaling the smoke to obtain its psychoactive effects.
1606: The first crop of cannabis is planted in Canada by an apothecary accompanying Samuel de Champlain. Instead of smoking, the plant is used to make rope, cloth and paper for colonial purposes.
April 23rd, 1923: Cannabis joins opium, morphine and cocaine on the Confidential Restricted List of prohibited substances, under the Narcotics Drug Act Amendment Bill. While hyperbole and racist rhetoric circulating via Maclean’s may have contributed to the motion, it’s more likely that Canadian involvement in international discussions on narcotics control at the League Of Nations was responsible. There’s no evidence that a parliamentary debate took place beyond the then Health Minister Beland stating “There is a new drug in the schedule.”
1962: 20 convictions for cannabis possession are reported over the entire year, penalized by a $1,000 fine and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
1966: Cannabis convictions skyrocket to over 2,000. Bob Dylan wheezes “Everybody must get stoned” in “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” as the media sensationalizes drug use by ‘hippies’ and ‘flower children’ roaming the country in VW vans and bell-bottoms.
1969: Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government forms the Le Dain Commission (chaired by a former Osgoode dean!) to investigate the non-medical use of marijuana in Canada. Their report, released three years later and featuring testimony from John Lennon, argued that criminal sanctions for possession were unfounded and penalties should flow from civil law instead.
The 1980’s: Canada, encouraged by US President, Ronald Reagan, subscribes to the ‘War on Drugs’ relying on heavy criminal law penalties to punish cannabis users and dealers. Stoner etiquette is expanded on the left-hand side by Musical Youth’s belligerently positive 1982 hit “Pass the Dutchie.”
The 1990’s: By 1994, weakening perceptions of harm and moral sanction contribute to an increase in nationwide cannabis use from 4.2% to 7.4%. Despite an unprecedented decline in crime rates across the country, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney introduces legislation to entrench cannabis in the same legal category as LSD and heroin. Mulroney has since become “a born-again weed evangelical,” joining the board of a US cannabis company this year despite having never admitted to using the drug.
2000: Terrance Parker, a Toronto man living with extreme epilepsy, becomes Canada’s first legal cannabis user after the Ontario Court of Appeal upholds the trial court’s finding that prohibition infringed his rights under s.7 of the Charter.
May 27, 2003: Prime Minister Jean Chretien (who denies ever smoking cannabis) and the Liberal majority introduce a bill to decriminalize possession of small amounts. The bill dies when Parliament prorogues. Chretien’s successor, Paul Martin (who denies ever smoking but recalls eating brownies with “a strange taste” in the 1960s) attempts to reintroduce the bill, but it suffers a similar fate when the Liberal government is defeated in a vote of non-confidence.
2003: In R v Malmo-Levine, the Supreme Court of Canada rejects the proposal of a new principle of fundamental justice – the harm principle – by upholding the sentence of self-proclaimed “marijuana and freedom activist” David Malmo-Levine. 1L Criminal Law casebooks get a few pages thicker.
Late March, 2006: The present author gets stoned for the first time, eats an entire large pizza, then immediately has to go to hockey practice.
Fall 2015: Justin Trudeau (who has admitted to smoking cannabis five or six times) campaigns with the promise to legalize cannabis nationwide and wins a large majority in the 42nd Canadian federal election on October 19th. “Sometimes, I guess, I have gotten a buzz, but other times no. I’m not really crazy about it,” he later tells the Huffington Post.
April 20, 2016: At the United Nations in New York, Health Minister Jane Philpott announces the federal government’s intentions to introduce new legislation. April 20th (4/20) is coincidentally the nationally recognized day of getting stoned in front of your provincial legislature.
April 13, 2017: Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, and its companion Bill C-46, an amendment to the Criminal Code, are introduced in Parliament. The House of Commons passes the bill, and after rejection of a Senate-proposed amendment outlawing the sale of cannabis-related merchandise, an effective legalization date is set.
October 17, 2018: Just after midnight, Newfoundlander Ian Power becomes the first Canadian to legally purchase recreational marijuana. “It feels great. I don’t think I’ve been more excited for anything in my life,” he tells reporters after becoming a part of history.
December 24, 2018: The present author smokes cannabis for probably the last time, then plays Pictionary with his family, who are also stoned.