Lots to work out with pot
As the clock ticks toward cannabis legalization this summer, Medicine Hat Police Chief Andy McGrogan says local law enforcement is preparing as best they can — but there are still plenty of unknowns.
“I don’t want to sound like we’re ill-prepared, but we’re ill-prepared — only because ... we just don’t know what this is going to bring,” said McGrogan.
“We know what some of the laws are, but we don’t know where they’re landing exactly.”
Legislation for recreational marijuana legalization is currently before the Canadian Senate, which will hold a final vote by June 7. The province has released its own guidelines for how marijuana will be sold and regulated in Alberta, while the city of Medicine Hat is working on its own bylaws.
“One of our big concerns from a policing perspective is public safety,” said McGrogan. Included in this is road safety — and the issue of impaired driving.
“There’s lots of science around impaired driving by alcohol,” he said. “Pretty much the standard around the world is .08. You’ve got lots of scientific rigor and research around it. But there’s not the same research and rigor around impairment and cannabis.”
What being impaired by marijuana is, and how to measure it, hasn’t been laid out, he said.
“Before they build an instrument they’d better figure out what the measurement of impaired is and what the science is about that.”
And police are not hearing “any good news” about costeffective measurement tools to measure marijuana impairment, he said. There’s a saliva test that costs $50 per swab, he said, but then there’s the question of who will be covering the cost of this.
Four officers are in the midst of “drug recognition” training, he said. “But the training is really hard to come by right now because everybody is trying to get trained and there’s only so much training available.”
As well, this method of using observation to judge if a person is impaired is a subjective one, said McGrogan.
“So how are the courts going to accept and embrace drug recognition experts giving evidence in relation to impairment?” he said. “Impairment is tough to prove almost always since I’ve been a police officer. They call it a marked departure from the norm. But some of the stuff isn’t a marked departure.”
Current enforcement
McGrogan stressed police are still treating marijuana as being illegal.
“We’ve got so many meth and opioid problems right now, we’re not too concerned about cannabis,” he said about the force’s focus on drug enforcement. “(But) It’s still illegal and we’re not turning a blind eye to it, and people have to follow the laws of the land until they change, and then we all adjust on that particular day.”
Internal regulation
What legalized marijuana will mean internally within the police force is also currently being evaluated.
McGrogan says MHPS is working with provincial counterpoints when it comes to occupational health and safety and other regulations for staff, with details to be available in the next couple months.