Five-year-old found packing pot at school in the Outaouais region

An unusual incident last week in an elementary school in Quebec’s Outaouais region is being cited as a cautionary tale as the legalization of cannabis goes into effect nationwide.

The incident occurred Friday at the school in the municipality of La Pêche, located about 30 kilometres north of Gatineau. Teachers at the school were surprised when one of their five-year-old students showed them a bag containing several grams of cannabis.

The child told the shocked school staff his mother had placed the substance, which was illegal at the time, in his school bag.

Authorities at the school called local police, who seized the bag and opened an investigation.

“It’s an unusual situation,” acknowledged Sgt. Martin Fournel of the MRC des Collines police, adding that police dealt with the case in a “preventive manner.”

“There are lessons to be learned from this incident,” he said.

“With legalization, if people are consuming (cannabis) at home, that’s no reason to let your guard down and leave it lying around anywhere.”

Meanwhile, no charges will be filed against the mother. “The purpose was not necessarily to charge anyone, and the investigation didn’t allow us to determine precisely who the substance belonged to, where it came from. There was still a reasonable doubt.”

Furthermore the quantity was small — and will be destroyed — and the mother had no criminal record.

While the province’s child protection authority was called in, the outcome of its investigation cannot be made public. Fournel noted that as unusual as the incident might appear, it isn’t a first.

“It’s happened in the past that schools had to face similar situations. We’re not only talking about cannabis, but also prescription medications and we’ve also seen bottles of alcohol.

“These are substances we don’t want to see, especially in a five-year-old’s schoolbag.”

Presse Canadienne