Region wants pot payment for legalization
Dr. Andrea Feller hopes cool heads prevail once the true costs of legalizing marijuana are determined.
“We don’t want to panic, for sure,” Niagara’s associate medical officer of health said in an interview following a health committee meeting Tuesday. “We don’t know exactly what will happen at our population level.”
But whatever the costs, health committee members want to ensure taxpayers won’t be responsible for paying the bill.
After learning about issues that could arise when the drug is legalized this summer, committee members approved recommendations to ask upper-tier governments for more details about legalization plans as well as appropriate funding to cover costs associated with the legalization.
“This is uncharted territory for us and for many of our partners,” Niagara’s chronic disease and injury prevention manager, Renata Faber, told committee members.
She said cannabis use in Niagara already exceeds the provincial average, with 16.5 per cent of residents and 35 per cent of Niagara secondary school students reporting using it in the past 12 months.
Although it’s still about five months away from becoming legal in Canada, people have been smoking marijuana legally in Colorado since January 2014. And local health and law enforcement agencies have been looking to that state to gauge the impact the legalization could have here.
Det. Const. Rick Weasner, a member of the Niagara Regional Police guns, gangs and grows unit said Colorado has seen an average 66 per cent increase in traffic fatalities related to the use of marijuana, an average 16 per cent increase in traffic fatalities overall, and a 72 per cent increase in marijuana-related hospitalizations in the four years since the drug was legalized there.
Although the legalization is only months away in Canada, Weasner said police here still do not have an approved roadside screening test to determine if drivers have been smoking marijuana.
Showing images of buildings flatted by explosions that occurred when people used butane and alcohol trying to extract a resin from marijuana containing far more tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) than a typical joint, Weasner said the legalization of the drug will likely have an impact on emergency services including police, firefighters and
paramedics.
He also expects to see more marijuana in local schools, because it will be easier for youth to access.
Community Addiction Services of Niagara chief executive officer Lisa Panetta said mental and addiction organizations across Ontario have already seen the harm related to cannabis use, “but the system has historically been underfunded.”
“People are already struggling to get the help that they need,” she said.
Feller pointed out that education initiatives in areas like Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized, have helped prevent the use of the drug from increasing.
Similar initiatives are planned here.
Feller said marijuana “is not a benign substance, especially if you’re under the age of mid-20s.”
“We’re not very much in the ‘don’t do it’ category, because we know that doesn’t work. But we’re more in the category that you deserve to know that this is not benign. It’s not your grandmother’s pot, and it can screw you up.”