Canada has officially legalized marijuana for all adults

Marijuana sales officially began in Canada on Wednesday, making it the first G7 country — and the second country in the world after Uruguay — to legalize the drug for all adults.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise to legalize marijuana, and his Liberal government delivered in the form of Bill C-45, otherwise known as the Cannabis Act.

While Trudeau cast the bill in a public health lens, in order to make marijuana more difficult for teenagers to access and erode black market profits, the global financial community is eagerly looking at Canada to see how legalization plays out.

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Constellation, the third-largest beer company in the US, paid $4 billion in August for a 38% stake ofCanopy Growth, the largest publicly traded marijuana grower, to develop marijuana-infused beverages and other products. It's the largest corporate investment in a marijuana cultivator to date.

Molson Coors recently entered ajoint venturewith Hexo, a publicly-traded cultivator, to produce marijuana-infused beer for the Canadian market, amongother deals.

Other big retail companies, like Walmart, havesignaled they are exploring the market for CBD (cannabidiol) products. CBD is a non-psychoactive component of marijuana that'slinked to a range of health benefits but can't get you high.

While Canada's marijuana legalization is a massive opportunity for investors and cannabis companies, the true value, according to some, is in the pressure it puts on the US to reform marijuana laws.

And while Canada may ultimately be a smaller marijuana market than California — the bank CIBC predicts it will become a $5 billion industry in the country by 2020 — the symbolism of being the first G7 country to legalize the plant means the whole world is watching.

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Canada has officially legalized marijuana for all adults

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