Since the inception of Canada’s recreational cannabis laws, every province has drafted a corresponding legislative framework. Which aspects of these provincial cannabis laws — namely policy goals, instruments and settings—diffused from the federal government, and which did not? This paper employs a qualitative analysis of material from the federal government and the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta and British Columbia to answer this question. The mechanisms by which policy diffused were coercion, learning and replication, with competition and imitation being absent entirely. The research demonstrates that different forms of diffusion have increased the likelihood for policy myopia becoming a source of policy failure given the over-reliance on replication of alcohol and tobacco policies. It recommends that any other jurisdictions considering the development of recreational cannabis policy (1) not impose a restrictive timeline for policy initiation, and (2) not overly rely on policy learning through replication of analogous legislative fields.