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This fall, the CEGEP de l’Outaouais will become the first college in Quebec and one of only two in Canada to offer a degree in how to grow and harvest cannabis. Students in Gatineau will also learn how to turn it into oil or brownies, and navigate the complex and ever-changing legal framework around the plant.

But they won’t be able to touch the stuff in class. That will still be illegal.

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It’s just one of the many paradoxes that consumers, parents, schools and businesses in Quebec will face starting Oct. 17 as Canada becomes the first major economy in the world to fully legalize marijuana. (It has been legal in Uruguay since 2013).

Three months before M-Day, we look at some of the potholes on the road ahead.

A dis-jointed government

It takes two to five minutes to walk 150 metres, or about 14.5 seconds to run it — if you’re Usain Bolt.

Under Quebec’s new cannabis law, that’s the minimum distance required between the province’s new government-run cannabis stores — to be known as the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) — and any school or daycare in Montreal.