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OTTAWA — People shouldn’t “jump to conclusions” about when they’ll be able to buy marijuana legally, as a key federal bill makes its way through Parliament, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says.

There will be an implementation phase that takes a “short period of time” after passage of the bill legalizing recreational marijuana use, Goodale said Wednesday.

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But he wasn’t saying whether that means people will be able to legally smoke pot as of July, as many have come to expect.

“This is a major, major change in the law. That requires a lot of reorientation in the system,” Goodale told reporters.

“And people need to do this in an orderly fashion. Until the law is changed, the law remains the law, and it must be respected. And you cannot jump to conclusions until Parliament has actually finished its work, enacted new legislation, and the royal proclamations have been made and so forth.”

Photo by Justin Tang/Canadian Press

The Liberals say the current system of prohibition does not stop young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of pot.