The federal government has introduced new marijuana legislation and acknowledged its current approach to cannabis is failing.
“It has allowed criminals and organized crime to profit, while failing to keep cannabis out of the hands of Canadian youth,” states a government press release.
“In many cases, it is easier for our kids to buy cannabis than cigarettes.”
In an effort to introduce more stringent regulations, the government released its proposed Cannabis Act on April 13. It would provide the legal framework to control the production, distribution, sale and possession of marijuana in Canada.
The plan is to bring the act into force no later than July 2018.
“The proposed legislation would allow adults to legally possess and use cannabis,” the press release stated. They could carry up to 30g of marijuana in public.
However, members of parliament and local law enforcement and health unit officials have expressed concerns about the proposed legislation.
Youth access
The impact on youths is one of the major concerns surrounding marijuana use in Canada.
“Canadian youth have the highest percentage of (cannabis) users in the developed world,” said Jennifer McCorriston, manager of healthy communities and public policy for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
The act will make it a criminal offence to sell cannabis to a minor and introduce “significant penalties for those who engage young Canadians in cannabis-related offences,” the government release states.
In addition, McCorriston said, ”they’ve also talked about banning the marketing and advertising and promotion of cannabis products.”
She supports the government plan to invest in a public education campaign to inform youths about the risks and harm of marijuana use. However, McCorriston also indicated she’d like to see the legal age raised from the proposed 18 years.
“There’s a lot of evidence that supports that if you delay the onset of drug use, which includes marijuana … the better (it) would it be,” she said.
“So current evidence confirms that the brain development is not complete until approximately the age of 25 and there’s further evidence that if you initiate marijuana use early and you are a frequent marijuana user … that can alter the structure of the developing brain and some of these effects may be irreversible.”
Perth-Wellington MP John Nater said the federal government’s proposed bill doesn’t do enough to reduce youth access to marijuana.
“The legislation, I think, makes it easier for children to get their hands on marijuana,” he said. “Kids as young as 12 would be able to legally have it in their possession, up to five grams of marijuana, so I think that’s a major concern from the community standpoint as well.”
He said children aged 12 to 18 could legally possess cannabis without being charged criminally.
Driving
In addition to youth access, local authorities are also concerned about drug-impaired driving.
“We’re going to have challenges with … how we’re going to be able to enforce drug impaired drivers and have some mechanism available to us at the roadside,” said Wellington County OPP Inspector Scott Lawson.
“Nobody can dispute the fact that marijuana does impair somebody’s cognitive function and so there’s definitely going to be negative impacts on having some level of usage of marijuana related to driving.”
Right now in Wellington County, if officers suspect a driver is under the influence of marijuana the verification process is quite lengthy, Lawson explained.
The county has two drug recognition officers “specially trained to determine drug impairment if we have signs of impairment but we clearly can rule out alcohol,” Lawson said.
If the driver fails to complete a series of tests the police have the legal right to ask for a urine or blood test.
“This is a long process over a course of a few hours,” Lawson said. “It’s not (as) expeditious as alcohol impairment.”
Though products are currently being tested, Lawson said a new tool to test for drug impairment isn’t going to be put into general-use over night.
“You can’t just take a product that claims to do a certain thing off the shelf at Walmart and use it on the roadside,” Lawson said.
“It has to be sanctioned by the government, built into the criminal code and be properly monitored, calibrated and agreed upon.”
He said he’s confident a tool will be provided before the bill potentially becomes law next year.
Nater said the government’s marijuana legislation “has been badly mismanaged.” In addition, he said that while the government struck a task force, it failed to address any of the identified challenges in legalizing marijuana – including roadside testing.
“The different police groups have acknowledged that there’s no perfect test for drug-impaired driving and even the tests they do have right now don’t accurately judge toxicity, so it’s a major concern that drug impaired driving could see an increase after this with no real way to combat it,” Nater said.
Home growth
Another challenge will be regulating marijuana grown in homes, as the legislation proposes up to four plants per household.
“There’s going to be the ability to have people grow their own marijuana, to a certain number of plants, in their home and that very much might be a challenge for us … to monitor,” Lawson said. “We’re kind of waiting to see what tools they’re going to give … to address those kinds of things.”
The biggest concern for public health is to keep the plants out of the reach of minors.
“Most children have trouble with the concepts of looking at plants and not touching or tasting or putting in their mouth,” McCorriston said.
“We know that children are especially vulnerable to any sort of toxin, including marijuana, because of their developing brain, so we just want to make sure that plants would be kept out of reach and sight of children and pets.”
She also said adults need to consider secondhand marijuana smoke as well.
Civil penalties
Both Wellington MPs have stated they don’t think all marijuana offences should be tried under the criminal code.
“It’s clear that the criminal code is not an effective tool to reduce usage and harm and new tools are needed,” said Wellington-Halton Hills MP Michael Chong.
“One of the new tools that I think the government should take a look at is a civil remedy approach rather than a criminal remedy approach.”
Nater agreed.
“For a small amount of possession police officers could issue a ticket rather than going through the criminal justice system because we do see a backlog in our … system due to marijuana and drug-related issues,” he said.
“So we’d like to give that discretion to the police officers to be able to issue a ticket if it is a single offence for a small amount.”
However, Chong added, “I do support leaving in place certain aspects of the criminal code and using certain aspects of the criminal code to combat organized crime, marijuana trafficking.”
Organized crime
Lawson said organized crime is going to remain a challenge under the proposed legislation.
“If somebody’s buying marijuana … it’s usually always driven in the background by some type of organized crime component … we’re going to need to very much focus on that part of it to really stem that issue,” he said.
However, he’s confident his concerns will be addressed before the bill becomes law.
“We’re very confident that we’re going to see the appropriate tools (that) allow us to continue providing public safety,” he said.
Marijuana and pregnancy
McCorriston stressed it will also be important to educate about the impact of marijuana use during pregnancy.
“We know that … the toxin in cannabis can be carried to the fetus during pregnancy and also can be present in breast milk following birth,” she said. “So heavy cannabis use during pregnancy can lead to a lower birth weight of a baby and it’s also been associated with longer-term developmental effects.”
-With files from Olivia Rutt
