Southern Albertans remain divided over recreational pot

40 APPLICATIONS FOR POT RETAIL OUTLETS IN LETHBRIDGE: AGLCC

Marijuana is now legal across Canada. Retailers will be opening soon in Lethbridge.

And Albertans strongly agree it should be available for medical treatments.

But they remain divided when asked if they agree with its “recreational” use.

The latest study by the long-running Citizen Society Research Lab shows more than 92 per cent of Albertans support the use of marijuana products “for medical purposes.”

But the province-wide survey, completed just days before ordinary “recreational” use became legal, shows there’s no consensus on that question. In fact, 50.6 per cent of those polled said they were opposed to legalization.

Here in southern Alberta, opposition is just fractionally lower — 50.3 per cent — while support for medical use is marginally higher, at 92.4 per cent.

Support for both of those ideas, says political scientist Faron Ellis, has increased over recent years. When Lethbridge College students calling from his research lab asked those questions a decade ago, he points out, about 73 per cent agreed with medical use with a little more than 35 per cent agreeing with Canadians using it for pleasure.

While it’s hard to predict what the next survey will show — a year after it became legal — Ellis says the reason Albertans haven’t welcomed legalization as heartily as others, may be political.

“For the past three years or so Albertans have been in a holding pattern with respect to this issue,” he says.

One reason is “undoubtable partisan in nature,” Ellis believes.

“Because it is a Liberal government that has implemented legal recreational cannabis,” they’re not singing its praises.

Albertans’ support for the initiative was increasing — “and rather quickly until 2015” — when the federal Liberals returned to power.

Legalized recreational use was one of the Liberals’ campaign pledges.

Since winning the election, Ellis adds, Prime Minster Trudeau has moved “to make good on that campaign promise” despite others’ opposition.

Now what?