Province targets next year for sales of recreational pot
Justice minister says devil in the details as NDP works to put regulations in place
Alberta should have regulations in place to allow recreational marijuana sales next year, Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said Tuesday.
The federal government has vowed to introduce legislation this spring to legalize pot, but Ganley said packaging, distribution, zoning, building codes and other details must be worked out before people can smoke and eat cannabis in the province without breaking the law.
“I’m not sure whether that has yet penetrated the public’s consciousness fully. There’s an enormous amount of work that has to be done,” she said following a speech to the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties convention in the Shaw Conference Centre.
“We’re preparing to have our decisions made within a year. A little bit more time would be better.”
One concern is ensuring pot products don’t attract children. For example, eating the drug is popular in Colorado, which Ganley visited last fall to see how that state’s legal cannabis system works. Colorado insists pot gummy candies can’t be in kid friendly animal shapes.
She also wants to ensure products contain “reasonable” levels of THC, the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological impact, and labels are accurate.
“Otherwise, you can get some really unfortunate effects.”
Association president Al Kemmere said his group wants the federal and provincial governments to help municipalities with the increased cost of enforcing bylaws related to the recreational marijuana industry.
Kemmere is a councillor in Mountain View County north of Calgary, home to Alberta’s only medical marijuana production facility, which has zoning approval for a major expansion.
The owner, Aurora Cannabis Inc., is also building a giant 75,000-square-metre facility near the Edmonton International Airport in a move the company has said is intended to cash in on the country’s looming recreational smoke business, as well as the growing medical field.
Kemmere said his board wants the province to change its rules similar to moves in B.C. so that municipalities can derive more taxation from such operations, which are now considered agricultural.
“It’s easy to say we’re going to legalize it, but how do you build the regulations around this? I think it’s going to take a collaboration of all three levels of government.”