It’s ‘impossible’ to prepare officers for legal pot in time: police

OTTAWA • Police are warning it could be “impossible” for law enforcement to get trained up in time for legal marijuana in July 2018.

Testifying at a House of Commons health committee Tuesday, police leaders expressed concerns about the Liberal government’s impending deadline to create a legal weed market. Organizations will need to know the new laws and regulations backwards and forwards before they can prepare their officers for duty, they said.

Mike Serr, deputy chief constable and chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police drug advisory committee, said the government should consider extending its deadline. “We ask that established legislative framework be put in place prior to legalization that will provide law enforcement with clear direction and assistance regarding funding and training,” he said.

The deputy commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police for investigation and organized crime, Rick Barnum, explained at least six or seven months of lead time would be necessary to ensure police forces are adequately prepared. For example, if a legal framework isn’t in place until July of next year, “it’s impossible” for officers to be ready by August, Barnum said.

Noted Thomas Carrique, deputy chief of the association, the repercussions of opening a legal market before police are ready would inevitably extend beyond the correctional system. Poor decisions by officers, based on inadequate or rushed training, could trickle into the courts system and result in “bad case law” being established under the new rules, Carrique said.

Police are looking for other specific amendments to the government’s Bill C-45, which sets a framework around legalizing cannabis.

Barnum said the OPP oppose the federal approach of allowing four cannabis plants per residence. He said Health Canada’s estimates on the yield and heights of average plants are low, and painted a picture of city apartment buildings essentially turning into massive grow ops.

“If we consider a 200-unit housing complex in any urban or suburban centre where half the units cultivate four marijuana plants or more, we can estimate anywhere from 400 to 600 plants being grown in one building throughout the year without proper ventilation, adequate electrical capacity and in close proximity to children. This scenario severely jeopardizes public safety,” he said.

Barnum added he’s worried about more break-andenter offences, with people wanting to steal the drug from people’s houses. This all “cannot be adequately managed within existing resource allocations,” he said.

Police unanimously expressed concerns about organized crime retaining a foothold in a legal market, and proposed licensed producers should be limited. With crime groups already “deeply involved” in the medical marijuana system, as Barnum put it, Serr said the existing structure for medical weed should be dissolved and the entire legal market streamlined into one strict system.

“Despite the Cannabis Act, organized crime will continue to look for opportunities to exploit the market,” Serr warned.

The Liberals’ cannabis act is being debated in health committee all day, every day this week before parliamentarians return to the Hill Monday.

Committee study will culminate in a clause-by-clause review during which MPs can propose amendments, but with a Liberal majority on the committee, this will depend on the government’s willingness to adjust its proposal. Amendments could also be possible in the Senate.