The federal government is responsible for establishing and maintaining a comprehensive and consistent national framework for regulating cannabis production, setting standards for health and safety, and establishing criminal prohibitions. More specifically, the federal government is responsible for the following:
• Establishing restrictions on adult access to cannabis, including purchasing through an appropriate framework, sourcing from a well-regulated industry, or growing safely in limited amounts at home;
• Establishing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal system, especially those who provide cannabis to youth;
• Creating rules to limit how cannabis or cannabis accessories can be promoted, packaged, labelled and displayed, to protect youth;
• Instituting a federal licensing regime for cannabis production that will set and enforce health and safety requirements and protect against the involvement of organized crime in the legal industry;
• Establishing industry-wide rules on the types of products that will be allowed for sale, standardized serving sizes and potency, the use of certain ingredients and good production practices, as well as the tracking of cannabis from seed to sale to prevent diversion to the illicit market;
• Creating minimum federal conditions that provincial and territorial legislation for distribution and retail sale would be required to meet, to ensure a reasonably consistent national framework to promote safety (e.g., adequate measures would need to be in place to prevent diversion, cannabis could not be sold to youth, and only legally produced cannabis could be sold);
• Establishing the ability for the federal government to license distribution and sale in any province or territory that does not enact such legislation;
• Enforcing the law at the border, while maintaining the free flow of legitimate travel and trade; and
• Establishing and maintaining the national framework for cannabis for medical purposes.