The Canadian government is currently working on legislation that would see in the legalisation of recreational marijuana by July 1 2018, making it the first G7 country to fully legalise usage.

According to local broadcaster CBC, the Liberal government will bring forward the legislation by early April; something the Liberal party has been promising for a length of time now. It would see one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s major campaign promises fulfilled: Trudeau, who’s been the party leader since 2013, has long been an advocate for the decriminalisation and regulation of marijuana.

These plans for new laws have a pretty good chance of going through and being implemented because of the Liberal majority government, so a market for chill weed users could open as early as July 2018.

Medical marijuana has been regulated in Canada since 2001, with users needing a prescription to buy off of one of about 40 federally regulated producers. One of Trudeau’s first steps towards legalising marijuana usage came in 2016, when he saw in the creation of a federal-provincial-territorial task force to examine the most appropriate way to approach casual cannabis use and possession. A report made public in December 2016 made various recommendations for any changes to the law, and is expected to influence what is brought to the label by lawmakers in April.

The taskforce recommended that Canada should only permit recreational marijuana usage by people over 18, and weed products should be taxed based on potency. It was also proposed that people can be allowed to grow up to four plants, and additionally possess up to 39 grams of the dried stuff. Further, plans could be set in place that are similar to how weed for medicinal purposes is handled, where the federal government issue licences to growing companies.

The idea behind legalising weed under a proper regime is that it would decrease its use among young people, affect organised crime dealings and improve wider public health, as the BBC reports.

Studies have also shown that people in Canada are among the largest numbers of people hittin the blunt. About 44 percent of the country admits to having used weed in some form at least once, and one in eight students smoke up/do edibles/pour hash oil into their tear ducts (who knows what the kids are doing these days) every day.

Trudeau has dodged any suggestion that marijuana be decriminalised before any regulations are put in place. Some criticism has come from the NDP, another Canadian political party. “The current prohibition stands,” Trudeau stated to the Toronto Star last year, “we’re not legalising marijuana to please recreational users... we’ve said we’re going to do it to protect our kids and to keep the money out of the pockets of criminals.”

July 1 2018 blaze it.