第二个承认大麻合法的国家！加拿大可以向“全球第一”学到什么经验教训

从美东时间10月16日晚开始，加拿大全境娱乐用大麻正式合法。加拿大联邦政府只出台了少数基础规定，由各省自行制定具体规则。这和邻国美国的做法截然不同。在美国很多州，要么规定从医用到娱乐用大麻通通违法，要么直接认定为合法，而联邦政府却对大麻使用不管不问。

美国政府视而不见产生了一些不良后果。在加拿大设定大麻合法化以前，乌拉圭一直是全球唯一认定成人娱乐用大麻价值链合法的国家。虽然该国使用美元，合法的大麻卖家却无法使用受美国监管的金融系统，比如美国的银行或者大型信用卡网络，因为美国法律禁止机构处理毒品“赃款”。即便跟科罗拉多州、加州和华盛顿州等大麻合法州的企业做生意，乌拉圭的商家也只能用现金交易，给交易双方都带来风险。

加拿大的企业不会受到合法性限制，但也许会遭遇乌拉圭面临的另一个问题：合法的大麻供应有限。加拿大已大量种植大麻，有些供应医用的合法用途，有些非法用途的流入黑市。如果要开辟新的合法娱乐用大麻市场，加拿大联邦政府就要给更多的工业化种植大麻业主颁发牌照，自用最多只能种植4株大麻。可食用大麻的规定还要一年以后才能落地。

加拿大滑铁卢大学经济学家安因达·森向旧金山媒体《圣荷西水星报》表示：“这就像是把五条道的公路并入一条道的国家公路。很难把方方面面及时理顺。”而且，加拿大与美国的关系也给大麻行业带来负面影响：如果前往美国的加拿大人承认刚抽过大麻，或者为了大麻生意而出差，美国的边境官可能会阻止他们入境。

不过，多年来一些跨国企业和投资基金一直在大麻市场外徘徊，等待合法投资大规模工业化种植和经销大麻的时机。多家医用大麻生产商也已在加拿大的股市上市。

在全球其他地方，今年早些时候格鲁吉亚与南非的高等法院都做出判决，裁定个人使用大麻合法，并未承认销售大麻合法。至少还有十几个国家出台了非正式政策，放松大麻相关法规的执法力度，但尚未正式批准合法生产和出售大麻。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Canada legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational use starting on October 16 night. The federal government set a few baseline rules and left others to the provinces. That differs from the U.S., where many states have decriminalized or outright legalized use of marijuana ranging from medical to recreational while the U.S. federal government has turned a blind eye to the whole affair

But turning a blind eye turns out to have consequences, too. Until yesterday Uruguay was the only country to have legalized the entire value chain for adult recreational use of marijuana. But because the country uses U.S. dollars, its legal marijuana sellers cannot tap into U.S.-regulated financial systems such as U.S. banks or the major credit card networks, which are forbidden from handling drug money. Like marijuana businesses in Colorado, California, and Washington state, the Uruguayan sellers have had to resort to cash, with all its attendant risks.

Businesses in Canada will not have that problem. But they may run into another problem Uruguay encountered: limited legal supply. Canada grows a lot of marijuana already, legally for medical purposes and illegally for the black market. The federal government will have to license more industrial growers to grow its new legal recreational market. Individuals can only grow up to four plants for their own use. Rules for edibles are also still a year away.

“It’s like trying to merge a five-lane highway into a one-lane country road. It’s tough to get everything through the bottleneck on a timely basis,” University of Waterloo economist Anindya Sen told the San Jose Mercury News. And relations with its southern neighbor will also put a damper on the party: U.S. border officials can bar from entry Canadians who admit to having used marijuana or whom might be traveling on marijuana-related business.

Still, international businesses and investment funds have been hovering around the market for years, waiting for the time when they could legally invest in large-scale industrializing marijuana cultivation and distribution. Several medical marijuana producers are already on Canadian stock markets.

Elsewhere in the world, Georgian and South African high courts issued rulings earlier this year that legalized personal use of marijuana without legalizing sales. At least a dozen other countries have informal policies limiting enforcement of marijuana laws without providing for a legal infrastructure for its production and sale.