Will Trudeau deliver on pot promise?
SASKATOON — With a Liberal government headed to Ottawa, advocates of legalizing marijuana are optimistic it will soon be legal for anyone to fire up a joint in Canada.
“I think it really signals a change across Canada,” said Ken Sailor, a longtime marijuana advocate in Saskatoon.
Justin Trudeau, the country’s new prime ministerdesignate, has not yet outlined a specific plan for the legalization of the popular recreational drug, but he ran on a campaign promising to legalize it.
The fact that a pledge to legalize weed didn’t sink Trudeau’s campaign means Canadians are ready for more fair drug laws, Sailor said.
“The idea that we are protecting anybody by making drugs illegal is just crazy. There is no evidence to support that.”
Others are more cautious in their optimism.
“All we’re going on is one man’s word. Whether or not he actually delivers, we won’t know that until after his first 100 days in office,” said Jeff Lundstrom, owner of Skunk Funk Smokers’ Emporium, a head shop in Saskatoon.
Despite Lundstrom’s admitted distrust of politicians and political promises, he said he hopes Trudeau’s campaign rhetoric turns into solid action. In the meantime, he hopes law enforcement takes notice.
“I hope the police take a step back and stop arresting people and searching people for marijuana because they know the platform of legalization is coming,” he said.
Canada’s top police chief said the laws as they are will continue to be enforced until Trudeau changes them.
“Until we hear anything further from federal prosecutions or new legislation, it will be business as usual for the enforcement of our marijuana laws,” said Clive Weighill, Saskatoon’s police chief and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP).
Weighill and the CACP have already called on the government to reduce simple marijuana possession to a ticketable offence rather than a criminal charge. He said handing out tickets to people who are caught with small amounts of pot rather than arresting them will reduce the burden on police officers and the court system.
That doesn’t mean the association favours legalization, however.
“We are not saying we want to see it legalized per se, but we are saying we can handle it in a different manner,” Weighill said.
One man who’s been watching the marijuana debate closely is Mark Hauk, head of the Saskatchewan Compassion Club, the province’s first medical marijuana dispensary. While he’s careful to keep discussions about medical marijuana and recreational legalization separate, he said he is breathing easier knowing the Liberals are in power.
“The difference for us today is feeling a lot less pressure, because we have a government in power that wants to move forward with sensible regulations as opposed to prohibition,” Hauk said.
Users and people in the industry need to understand that legalization is not a free-for-all, he added.
“People are rejoicing in the cannabis community, thinking it’s going to be a free-for-all, and the reality is we’re probably going to end up with more regulations than we had before.”
Sailor noted working models already exist in jurisdictions like Colorado, where pot is legal. He hopes Canada follows a similar model and reaps the tax dollars in return, he said.
“We have to provide a way of legal growing, legal distribution, legal selling.”
Sailor said legalization will likely reduce the number of young people using the drug and make it safer because people won’t have to turn to the black market to access marijuana.
“This can only be good for our children by taking the black market out of their world,” he said.