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Saskatchewan pot smokers who get busted over the next 14 months aren’t likely to receive much sympathy from the federal government, which maintains that the “law is the law until it’s changed” on Canada’s birthday next year.

The Liberal government won’t offer amnesty to people convicted of simple possession of marijuana or encourage police departments to stop enforcing the law until the drug becomes legal, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters on Friday.

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“It is not appropriate in a democratic society where we respect the rule of law to say, a year or so in advance, we can just pretend the law doesn’t exist. We’re going to get to the new regime, but we have to get there in a step-by-step way that respects the law.”

Goodale was in Saskatoon to announce federal funds for Morris Industries Ltd., the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership and the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies just over a week after the government unveiled its pot legalization plan.