Penalize pot-sharing with minors: Senate

OTTAWA — There should be legal consequences for youths who share a joint with a minor once recreational marijuana has been legalized in Canada, the Senate decided Tuesday.

Senators voted 42-31 for an amendment to Bill C-45 that would make it a summary or ticketing offence for a young adult to share five grams or less of cannabis with a minor who is no more than two years younger; it would be an indictable offence to share with younger minors or to share more than five grams.

They also voted 45-29 to require that any company licensed to grow marijuana publicly disclose all its shareholders or executive members who are not based in Canada — an amendment aimed at ensuring organized crime doesn’t use offshore tax havens to wind up secretly controlling the recreational marijuana market.

And they approved, by a close vote of 39-36, another amendment that would specify that police who seize cannabis plants don’t have to keep them alive.

That brings to 43 the number of amendments the Senate has so far approved to Bill C-45. There are likely to be more before the bill is put to final vote in the upper house on Thursday.

The most significant of those amendments would allow provincial and territorial governments to prohibit the home cultivation of marijuana plants, if they so choose, whereas the bill, as originally drafted, would allow up to four plants per dwelling.

Another amendment would tighten advertising restrictions on cannabis companies, preventing them from promoting their brands on so-called swag, such as T-shirts and ball caps.