President Barack Obama says though he doesn’t think legalizing marijuana will end America’s drug problem, he believes pot should be regulated the same way cigarettes and alcohol are regulated.

Obama, in an interview with Rolling Stone published Tuesday, said regulating marijuana is a much smarter way to handle the issue that continuing to treat it as a Schedule I drug.

Who can buy and sell pot, where it will be sold, and who gets the profits, all up in the air.

The federal task force on marijuana regulation and legalization hands over its final report to the government today, moving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to legalize marijuana one step closer to completion.

The nine members of the task force held roundtables with experts across the country, visited two U.S. states where pot is already legal and got advice from about 28,000 Canadians through online consultations. 

It's expected to take days if not weeks for the government to publicly release the panel's report. When it does, here are some big outstanding questions to watch for.

It’s early evening in a parking lot outside a DoubleTree in northeast Denver. At the north end of the lot is a 1987 Winnebago with seven people inside, gathered around a table covered with cannabis products: a concentrate pen, a dab rig, some bud flower and edibles. Once most of the group has gotten loaded, the seven are going to spend the rest of the night at the hotel, with a bunch of cops.

In less than three weeks, anyone 21 or older can legally possess and consume marijuana in the Bay State. Acquiring the drug is another story.

In less than three weeks, New England will enter uncharted waters — more specifically, uncharted waters for the East Coast of the United States.

Amid President-elect Donald Trump's pick of marijuana legalization opponent Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Massachusetts will become the first state on the East Coast to allow recreational marijuana use as the new law goes into effect Dec. 15.

That means anyone 21 or older — including Massachusetts residents and Rhode Islanders who cross the border — can legally possess and consume marijuana in the Bay State.

Acquiring the drug is another story.

While PSHE lessons at school would have you believe that if you so much as touch a joint you’ve put yourself on a one-way road to a future crack addiction, others have a different approach.

Weed is known for its health benefits – including helping alleviate Parkinson’s tremors – and it’s even been suggested that it could assist alcoholics in giving up drinking.

The thought of marijuana cultivation brings to mind images of the a “Back to the Land” Movement, and perhaps of a philosophy that eschews waste and aims for practices that are more in tune with the environment.

But the marijuana business has a dirty secret: it is likely that illicit marijuana grow ops use 40 per cent more electricity than metal mining in Canada today.

Weed is winning in the polls, with a solid majority of Americans saying marijuana should be legal. But does that mean the federal government will let dozens of state pot experiments play out? Not by a long shot.

Marijuana barbecue sauce, anyone?

As Alaska's cannabis cultivators and marijuana stores slowly come online, dozens of marijuana products — from brownies to lotion to high-potency concentrates — are being developed for the Alaska market.

Five businesses have been approved to make edibles and concentrates so far. Three of them — Frozen Budz in Fairbanks, Einstein Labs in Anchorage and Top Hat Concentrates in Juneau — can make edibles, concentrates, tinctures and other products like salves and lotions with their product-manufacturing license approved by the Marijuana Control Board.

The other two, Babylon Company and R.C. Tinderbox, both in Anchorage, have  licenses limiting them to production of marijuana concentrates only.

Ottawa’s march toward a controlled market for legal marijuana in Canada takes a major step forward this week with the delivery of a task force report that includes advice on a minimum age, product warnings and measures to prevent drug-impaired driving.

The report on pot legalization will be delivered to cabinet by Wednesday, said task force chair Anne McLellan, a lawyer and former federal cabinet minister in the Chrétien and Martin governments.

Ms. McLellan said her nine-person group – which has received 30,000 online submissions and visited U.S. states with experience in the legalization process – has authored a responsible, fair and balanced report that will “engender a lot of interest.”

Before Election Day, San Bruno software application engineer Stephen Zyszkiewicz was busted on a charge of having cannabis with intent to sell– a felony that might have put him behind bars in state prison for three years.

But this month’s passage of Proposition 64 implies the 32-year-old is qualified for a much lowered charge– a misdemeanor that brings a maximum penality of 6 months in county jail and a $500 fine.

“I am enthusiastic. It’s the will of the voters,” stated Zyszkiewicz, who ran The Opposite of the Fence Collective, an unlicensed marijuana operation.