City to allow off-duty officers to smoke pot

Police chief says those who use cannabis must be ‘fit for duty’ at beginning of shift

Off-duty Ottawa police officers will be permitted to use cannabis once it’s legal in Canada later this month, Chief Charles Bordeleau said Monday, as long as they’re “fit for duty” when they report for work.

The policy is similar to the one for drinking alcohol or even using prescription drugs, he said.

“An individual, an officer, needs to be fit for duty when showing up for work. We have different assessment methods to be able to determine whether that person is fit for duty or not,” Bordeleau said before a meeting of the police-services board, which oversees the force.

Some other cities have imposed a stricter standard. Calgary’s police department, for instance, has banned recreational cannabis use among its officers if there’s any possibility they could be “operationally deployed” unexpectedly. There’s no sure way of knowing how long it might take to come down from a marijuana high, so Calgary has told all officers who aren’t restricted to desk duties they ’re just required to abstain at all times.

Vancouver, in contrast, has adopted a policy more like Ottawa’s. Neither includes guidelines for officers to tell them how long they should wait after smoking or consuming cannabis-laced edibles before they start work. The “fit-forduty” standard covers physical, mental and emotional readiness.

The Canadian Forces are using rules saying members of the military have to abstain while they’re deployed on any operation, for eight hours before “any known or expected performance of any duty,” and 24 hours before starting more hazardous jobs, such as those that involve handling weapons or ammunition or jumping out of airplanes.

“We’ve opted not to include hours of use. The term ‘fit for duty’ has been defined and that’s what most police services in Ontario will be following,” Bordeleau said.

An individual, an officer, needs to be fit for duty when showing up for work. We have different assessment methods …

The chief also said he’s disappointed by changes the provincial Progressive Conservative government has made to the plans for regulating cannabis sales and use in Ontario once the federal government legalizes it on Oct. 17. Those include taking away municipal governments’ authority to regulate where marijuana can be sold and treating joints much like cigarettes. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act makes a lot of the province a no-smoking zone but cigarettes can be smoked openly on the street. Soon joints will be treated similarly.

“We would have preferred that it followed more closely, be aligned to the Liquor Licence Act, where you can’t drink in public,” Bordeleau said.