Nova Scotia’s Minister of Justice says he’s comfortable with the age of 19 to legally purchase marijuana at NSLC select stores when it becomes legal next July.
Mark Furey says it was done after careful consideration and analysis.
He says also considered was the fact Nova Scotia has the highest consumption of illegal marijuana among youth 18 to 35 in the country.
Furey says there is a large population under the age of 19 using marijuana.
He says they also heard from the Canadian Medical Association who suggested that 25 should be the legal age.
“The reason they landed on 25 is because they believe the human brain has developed to a point that the consumption of marijuana would have minimum impact. But if we were to set the age at 25 then we have the largest percentage of consumers in the country continuing to source the illegal market.”
He also says Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick also wanted to avoid another problem..
“The last thing we wanted to do was to create a cross-border shopping scenario between Nova Scotia ad PEI and between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It was important for us to be objective, to be rational, common-sense, sound judgement in reaching this age.”
Furey says the province’s objective is to create a well regulated legal market and minimize the involvement of organized crime.
