OTTAWA— The federal government will bring in legislation next spring that could see storefront or mail-order sales of legal recreational pot to Canadians aged 18 and older if Ottawa adopts recommendations in a new report.

The report by a federal task force assigned to study how the Liberals could implement their campaign promise to legalize pot was released Tuesday, and said three provinces — including Ontario — may want to set the legal marijuana consumption age higher to match their minimum drinking age of 19.

Overall, the task force chair said regulation of many aspects of a new legalized marijuana market should be left up to provinces working with municipalities. It called for strict rules on personal possession, sale and distribution, along with massive investments on public awareness campaigns, research into the medical effects of marijuana, and on boosting law enforcement’s ability to police drug-impaired drivers.

Anne McLellan, chair of the task force that released 80 recommendations Tuesday, said the panel “took into account” advice from the Canadian Medical Association, which called for a minimum age of 21 for legal consumption, based on fears of damage to teenagers’ brains.

But McLellan said the report opted for a younger age to avoid the criminalization of the highest group of pot users — youth aged 18-25 — an oft-stated goal of the government.

“Eighteen is the age at which young adults — and I call them deliberately young adults — are expected to be able to make decisions, whether it’s who to vote for, to buy alcohol, to smoke,” McLellan told the Star in an interview.

“Eighteen is an age at which we believe in our society young people are capable of making informed responsible decisions.”

She “would not deny that there is a risk” of normalizing pot use for younger people, but said that’s why a vigorous public education campaign is key “to help everyone to understand this is not a benign substance, in whatever form you take it. . . . But we believe that at the age of 18, with sufficient information, you should be allowed to take that decision.”

McLellan, a former Liberal health, justice and public safety minister, admitted that in the past she expressed the concerns of her health department officials over smoking marijuana. “But 10 to 12 years on? I mean the world is moving in a certain direction and we, I think, need to understand the consequences of continuing to prohibit marijuana in the absolute form that we have for decades,” she said.

“We aren’t even meeting our public health goals, right? We’ve got this prohibited substance. What’s the most easily available substance to your teenage kids? More available than alcohol? More available than tobacco? It is cannabis. So we’ve failed. So let’s fix it.”

The 106-page report did not say at what price it expects organized crime or black market sellers would be squeezed out of the game, saying those questions will be up to provinces and commercial players in the marketplace. Generally its researchers assumed that pot now sells for about $8 a gram in the illegal market. The task force did not project how much revenue governments could make once they begin collecting taxes on legal pot sales.

But it made specific recommendations that individuals be allowed to legally possess 30 grams for personal use, or grow four plants in their own home, without having to face criminal sanction.

It urged the current distribution system for medical users be kept separate from any new recreational system — a recommendation the Canadian Medical Association called disappointing. In a release Tuesday, the CMA said clinical evidence of medical benefits for medical users is limited, and noted the present system “poses a serious challenge for physicians in providing the best care to patients.”

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said only that it was reviewing the report and noted “there certainly will be a significant impact on police officer training, drug recognition experts and roadside equipment in relation to impaired driving.”

McLellan said drug impaired driving may or may not spike briefly, but she predicted if more money is put toward proper roadside testing, that “we will probably end up with better identification and prosecution of drug impaired drivers and faster than we would have otherwise.”

Marijuana companies rode a euphoric high Tuesday as stock prices climbed after the report’s release.

The federal government said it will act quickly.

“We have an incredible amount of work to do not only to review substantively the report from the task force but to continue to engage with the provinces and territories to ensure we can put in or we can legalize and strictly regulate access to ensure our objectives to keep it out of the hands of kids and the profits out of the hands of criminals,” said Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.

On the public safety side, the report recommends criminal prohibitions be retained on trafficking to youth, on illicit production, trafficking, production for the purpose of trafficking or export and import/export restrictions. Breaches of laws on production, licensing and distribution could be subject to administrative penalties, it says.

The Canadian Public Health Association welcomed the report but warned “there is a massive amount of work to be done” and spending by all levels of government to ensure “the necessary systems are up-and-running by the time cannabis retail sales become a reality.”

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Conservative MP Colin Carrie, the party’s health critic, said it was “troubling” that the panel recommended 18 as the minimum age to purchase because “all the evidence suggests that up to age 25 there can be significant and permanent damage to youth in their brain development.”

He urged the Liberals “not to rush it. . . . slow down and make sure you are listening to the science,” Carrie said.

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith

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