The legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada is only days away!

Ahead of the October 17th deadline, each province has passed its own new legal code covering everything from the distribution to the consumption of the drug.

Because these regulations vary so dramaticallyfrom province to province, Canadians could easily find themselves in trouble if, as they pass from one province to another, they unsuspectingly violate minutely different provincial laws. One issue in particular that has concernedmarijuana users is the legal transporation of the drug from place of purchase or between legal points of consumption.

Indeed, each province has specific guidelines for how to transport cannabis. Infractions come with severe penalties.

This will cause a lot of trouble, to say the least. Crossing the border has always been a tense experience. For the thousands of Canadians who will be joining the legalized cannabis industry, it’s going to become even more harrowing.

Even though cannabis has been legalized for recreational or medical use in 30 U.S. states, the federal government still views it as a controlled substance. American border guards have immense latitude over who they let enter the country. If you’re not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident, your rights at the border are very limited. Border guards have every right to ask you about your employment, drug use or even your investments.

You'll soon be able to legally buy and consume cannabis in Manitoba — but there are plenty of rules to dictate exactly how you can do that.

On Oct. 17, Canada will become the first country in the G7 to legalize cannabis on a national level.

But it won't be a free-for-all: Ottawa and all the provinces will still enforce rules on its use, and those rules will differ from province to province. Here's what we know so far about how it's going to work in Manitoba.

Using it

To start with, Manitobans who want to use cannabis have to be 19 or older.

The federal government’s end to its 95-year pot prohibition will also be a boon for hemp producers. They’ll soon be allowed to sell the plant’s flowers to be processed for its CBD, a cannabinoid without any psychoactive effects that’s being hailed for its medicinal potential.

Health Canada approved an exemption last month allowing commercial hemp growers to harvest flowers and leaves to be dried and stored on their farms ahead of Oct. 17, when the sales ban on those portions of the plant will be lifted. Only the stalks, seeds and stems can be sold now.

“That’s a brand new revenue stream,” Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance executive director Ted Haney said.

Does this whole marijuana legalization process have your head spinning as much as it does mine? With the recent news that smoking and investing in weed could land you a lifetime ban from the U.S., Canadians are justifiably shook - and the whole dilemma just got a tad more complicated. Allow me to explain why.

According to an article by Global News, U.S. authorities don't need a warrant to go snooping into your credit card transactions. With that being said, if one were to purchase marijuana with their credit card and tried to cross the border, patrol officials could potentially see this.

The legalization of cannabis in Canada is about to bring big changes not just for medical cannabis companies but for hemp growers as well.

Canada’s measure of real gross domestic product will get a boost after the legalization of marijuana adds as much as $8 billion to the country’s economy, according to Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Statistics Canada will begin including “licensed and unlicensed cannabis activity” in its economic calculations after the Oct. 17 roll out, which will have an impact on measured growth rates in the final quarter of 2018 and first quarter 2019, TD says. The bank cautions that the increase to growth is actually an accounting illusion, because some of the cannabis-related trade already existed in the economy but wasn’t formally captured in most measures of output.

Canadians involved in the legal cannabis industry are facing deep potholes on the road to entering the United States — and immigration lawyers say the federal government needs to help them navigate a way through.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency sent tremors through the country’s burgeoning cannabis sector last week with word that legalization in Canada won’t change the fact that American laws treat marijuana as a banned substance, and industry insiders as drug traffickers.

Despite the fact that some jurisdictions in North America permit the use of medical and recreational marijuana, U.S. federal law continues to prohibit its sale, possession, production and distribution, an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

Albertans hoping to spark up in a cannabis cafe or lounge will have to wait until edible cannabis products are regulated, says the province.

In a statement, the province said while they await more information on an easy-to-eat pot product, they will be ready to regulate brick-and-mortar consumption sites at a later date.

Health Canada has set a prospective date of October 2019 for the sale of edible marijuana products.

Ward 3 Coun. Jyoti Gondek said a lack of government communication has caused issues that could have been prevented. “My thoughts haven’t changed much over the entire time we have been having this debate,” she said.

In a boardroom at the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces headquarters in Ottawa, Christian Lizotte was ready to toss some balls.

He held a tray of black, red, and orange balls in one hand; on the table beside him rested a pair of black goggles similar to ski goggles. But this isn’t actually a game, and these goggles, when combined with certain activities, are meant to simulate the effects of being stoned on cannabis without actually consuming it.

Lizotte, a health promotion specialist at the armed forces, turns to his colleague, Laura O’Dell, and instructs her to catch only the black ones without the goggles or, so to speak, sober. “Clear?” he asked. “All right, let’s do this.”