Legal weed may not be the “revenue cash cow” provinces and territories were hoping for, says the Yukon’s assistant deputy minister of justice.

While the recreational marijuana market will open up new revenue streams, said Al Lucier, those dollars, at least in the early days, will be funneled into awareness and education campaigns, research and policy enforcement.

“The regulatory and enforcement aspects that will come in with these changes will certainly offset revenues generated by the taxation of the products,” Lucier said in an interview this week. He is also a senior official in a working group on the legalization, regulation and restriction of cannabis in Canada.

On Tuesday, a cannabis legalization task force, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, released a report with more than 80 recommendations for how to regulate marijuana and end nearly a century of prohibition in Canada.

Among them, the federal task force suggests a minimum age of 18 for the purchase of pot, or slightly older, in keeping with the legal drinking age in different provinces and territories.

It also proposes strict rules around pot promotion, similar to those surrounding tobacco. The task force calls for a ban on packaging that would make pot look like candy or be otherwise “appealing to children.”

It’s also important, the task force noted, that marijuana not be taxed to the point where consumers turn to illegitimate dealers for cheaper herb.

How legal marijuana will be regulated, sold and policed in the territory remains hazy, to say the least.

Will the Yukon government wholesale to private dispensaries, or will it operate its own weed stores? Might marijuana be sold at pharmacies?

Will the government approve marijuana lounges? What about smoking in public places, like parks?

Whatever the marijuana legislation looks like, it’s likely the territorial government will be a major player in the pot market, said Lucier.

“The mechanisms of a controlled and regulated substance usually lends itself to a regime that has some government involvement,” he said.

“If we look at tobacco, if we look at alcohol, certainly the latter of those, in every jurisdiction, even if the sale point is different, the main regulator in the distribution is government.”

Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee is reviewing the report and will work with the federal government to determine how marijuana policy is rolled out in the territory, said cabinet spokesperson Sunny Patch.

“It’s still pretty early days,” she said.

The task force also made recommendations on how to curb criminal prosecution for minor marijuana-related offences, specifically those around underage use, which would criminalize youth.

“You want to ensure that there are safeguards around age, but at the same time, the age becomes difficult because you don’t want to create and illegitimate venue for illicit products,” said Lucier, who previously served with the RCMP in the Yukon.

“One of the federal tenets in moving on this item is to not criminalize individuals for social behaviour.”

Indeed, the task force recommends that “social sharing” of marijuana not be a criminal offence, and that users be allowed to carry up to 30 grams in public.

Cannabis possession accounts for a relatively small proportion of criminal charges laid in the Yukon.

In 2015, for example, 1,507 people were criminally charged in the territory, and 18 of them were charged with cannabis possession, according to data from Statistics Canada.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 10 of this year, 11 charges were laid in the Yukon for possession of 30 grams of weed or less, said Coralee Reid, a spokesperson for the Yukon RCMP.

The task force noted that cannabis-impaired driving “generated a great deal of concern” during consultations. There is a worry that legalization will lead to more stoned drivers on the road.

Of course, drug-impaired driving is not a new issue.

Cpl. Shawn Pollard with the Yukon RCMP said already sees “a fair amount” of cannabis-impaired drivers on the Whitehorse roads.

“A lot more in the last few years,” he added. “A lot of people don’t understand that it’s still illegal.”

He gets suspicious if he can smell weed, or if the driver is displaying physical signs: bloodshot eyes, slow movements, “basically some of the same signs as impaired by alcohol,” he said.

Still, testing for cannabis impairment is not so cut and dry.

For one thing, the task force determined that the level of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis, in the body is not a reliable indicator of impairment.

THC can stay in the bodies of heavy users, such as those who use marijuana for medical reasons, for days or weeks. Frequent users may also have a higher tolerance to the drug, and won’t show signs of impairment.

Determining the legal limit for THC in the blood is “something the government is struggling with,” said Pollard.

Whether to impose a legal limit, and what that limit might be, are questions the task force said need further study.

Ultimately, concluded the federal task force, revenue generation should come second to public health and safety.

Lucier agrees.

“It really comes down to what’s the right thing for society, and how do the legislators take that on and bridge the public health with public safety, with responsible access, with the elimination of organized crime and profitability,” he said.

“It’s a pretty difficult and complicated matter to deal with.”