Municipal marijuana rules will be unenforceable
This year’s 4-20 festivities in Canada were theoretically the last to be held as an act of defiance over marijuana prohibition.
Yet when recreational pot use is finally made legal by the federal government, a move expected sometime at the end of summer or perhaps a little later, many Canadians who enjoy consuming cannabis will be scarcely more free to indulge in their mind-altering substance of choice.
In many municipalities, local councils have enacted bylaws that would outlaw marijuana use in most settings, apart from private homes.
And where such rules haven’t been adopted, health officials and others are pushing hard for such restrictive rules to be adopted.
Clearly, such limitations at the city level are not nearly as harsh as having pot use governed under the Criminal Code, but tight municipal controls on consumption rules fly in the face of what is supposed to be an agenda of liberalization.
There are abstract, conceptual problems with such regulations.
To start, the contradictory messaging is problematic. Canadians will be free to purchase cannabis but many will have nowhere to use it.
While cities have been quick to regulate where marijuana stores can open and how far they must be from their brethren, liquor stores or schools, they’ve been slower to include lounges and other gathering places into their plans.
People will also be divided into different classes of citizens depending of whether they have the good fortune of living in a single-family dwelling.
While using marijuana in multi-family dwellings is theoretically allowed, many buildings are already designated as non-smoking when it comes to tobacco use. I can’t imagine there’d be exceptions made for smoking weed.
It’s therefore very likely people who prefer to live in an apartment-style setting — or don’t have the means to live in a standalone house of some kind — will be more affected by city pot restrictions than those who live in a typical single-family dwelling.
Then you have a raft of practical problems.
Many marijuana users do so for medical reasons and, in some jurisdictions, would be exempt from municipal regulations forbidding outdoor pot use.
Leaving aside the apparent ease with which such an exemption can be obtained, we are faced with the possibility of police and bylaw officers stopping people on the street to check their credentials and medical licensing status.
Things will get even more complicated once edible marijuana products become legal. How are law-enforcement types to distinguish pot pastry and cannabis candy from their not-so-special counterparts?
Then you have problems related to vaping. I can’t think of an obvious way to tell the difference between a cannabis vaping device and a tobacco vaping device.
There’s the distinct possibility of people being randomly stopped for verification because of these issues.
Of course, the opposite could also be true: police and bylaw officers might have more important things to do than policing pot rules.
In Calgary for instance, the head of the police union has already said there is no way overburdened frontline officers will participate in any kind of crackdown on public marijuana use.
And then there’s the biggest issue of all: Despite being currently illegal, pot use in public is already happening anyway and has been going on for years. This is not going to stop because cities have passed new bylaws to regulate cannabis consumption.
While municipalities have put in place marijuana use rules with the good intention of trying to keep pot smoke away from those of us who’d rather not be near it, the result is a largely ineffective bureaucratic haze that’s very likely to be ignored.
This year’s 4-20 festivities in Canada were theoretically the last to be held as an act of defiance over marijuana prohibition.
Yet when recreational pot use is finally made legal by the federal government, a move expected sometime at the end of summer or perhaps a little later, many Canadians who enjoy consuming cannabis will be scarcely more free to indulge in their mind-altering substance of choice.
In many municipalities, local councils have enacted bylaws that would outlaw marijuana use in most settings, apart from private homes.
And where such rules haven’t been adopted, health officials and others are pushing hard for such restrictive rules to be adopted.
Clearly, such limitations at the city level are not nearly as harsh as having pot use governed under the Criminal Code, but tight municipal controls on consumption rules fly in the face of what is supposed to be an agenda of liberalization.
There are abstract, conceptual problems with such regulations.
To start, the contradictory messaging is problematic. Canadians will be free to purchase cannabis but many will have nowhere to use it.
While cities have been quick to regulate where marijuana stores can open and how far they must be from their brethren, liquor stores or schools, they’ve been slower to include lounges and other gathering places into their plans.
People will also be divided into different classes of citizens depending of whether they have the good fortune of living in a single-family dwelling.
While using marijuana in multi-family dwellings is theoretically allowed, many buildings are already designated as non-smoking when it comes to tobacco use. I can’t imagine there’d be exceptions made for smoking weed.
It’s therefore very likely people who prefer to live in an apartment-style setting — or don’t have the means to live in a standalone house of some kind — will be more affected by city pot restrictions than those who live in a typical single-family dwelling.
Then you have a raft of practical problems.
Many marijuana users do so for medical reasons and, in some jurisdictions, would be exempt from municipal regulations forbidding outdoor pot use.
Leaving aside the apparent ease with which such an exemption can be obtained, we are faced with the possibility of police and bylaw officers stopping people on the street to check their credentials and medical licensing status.
Things will get even more complicated once edible marijuana products become legal. How are law-enforcement types to distinguish pot pastry and cannabis candy from their not-so-special counterparts?
Then you have problems related to vaping. I can’t think of an obvious way to tell the difference between a cannabis vaping device and a tobacco vaping device.
There’s the distinct possibility of people being randomly stopped for verification because of these issues.
Of course, the opposite could also be true: police and bylaw officers might have more important things to do than policing pot rules.
In Calgary for instance, the head of the police union has already said there is no way overburdened frontline officers will participate in any kind of crackdown on public marijuana use.
And then there’s the biggest issue of all: Despite being currently illegal, pot use in public is already happening anyway and has been going on for years. This is not going to stop because cities have passed new bylaws to regulate cannabis consumption.
While municipalities have put in place marijuana use rules with the good intention of trying to keep pot smoke away from those of us who’d rather not be near it, the result is a largely ineffective bureaucratic haze that’s very likely to be ignored.
