April 13, 2017: MONTREAL — The Canadian government on Thursday announced new legislation legalizing marijuana, fulfilling one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s major campaign promises.
Canada has anticipated the law will take effect in the summer of 2018.
The new federal laws will make the possession of small amounts of pot legal throughout the country and will also establish broad guidelines concerning who can grow, sell and buy the drug.
Many specifics regarding who can possess or sell will be left to the individual provinces.
Canada legalized marijuana for some medicinal uses in 2001.
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."