Canada's Liberal government will introduce legislation to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana in spring 2017, Health Minister Jane Philpott stated during the special session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, TASS reported.

"We will introduce legislation in spring 2017 that ensures we keep marijuana out of the hands of children and profits out of the hands of criminals," CBC reported quoting Jane Philpott.

According to her, such decision challenges the current situation in many countries, but this is the best way to protect youth and at the same time to increase the level of public safety. Philpott did not give other details.

At the beginning of December of last year the Governor General of Canada David Johnston stated that the authorities of the country don't reject plans for marijuana legalization. During the election campaign, the current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, representing the Liberal Party, promised to consider the legalization of soft drugs in Canada, based on the experience of a number of US states.

The gradual process of marijuana legalization in Canada has already begun. The Supreme Court of the country has legalized any use of marijuana in the medical purposes on June 11, 2015.

The decision was taken unanimously by all the judges. Patients were so far allowed to use marijuana only in the dried form suitable for smoking under the prescription of doctors. Any other use of it was considered illegal and led to criminal liability.

The city council of the Canadian Vancouver has allowed granting licenses to shops for selling marijuana in the medical purposes last year, on June 24. Thus, Vancouver became the first city in Canada where the sale of soft drugs in special shops was legalized.

This February the Federal court of Canada lifted a government ban on cultivation for those who use this drug for the medical purposes