With less than a year to go before marijuana is schedule to be legalized, London’s police chief is expressing doubt over whether they will be ready to enforce the new laws.
Earlier this week, police from across the country voiced concerns about the pending legalization, saying they need time and money to properly train their officers.
Pare says people behind the wheel are they’re biggest worry.
“The impaired driving is a huge concern, there is a fair bit of training that needs to go into this to ensure that we’re prepared to address impaired driving by drugs. The training is time consuming, there’s huge resource implications, so I think that’s the bigger piece right now,” said Pare.
He says resources are hard to come by, and as the deadline for marijuana legalization approaches, they have less time to properly train their officers.
“The training, first of all, is understanding what the new legislation will be like. Second of all is the training around impaired driving, for example. There’s specific training for field sobriety testing and there’s specific training for drug recognition experts. The training for that is limited right now,” said Pare.
The government has offered some financial support. They announced more than $274 million has been pledged for enforcement.
Pare says it’s difficult to anticipate how prepared they will be.
“Until we have the final details of the legislation and how it’s going to be rolled out, it’s hard to predict exactly where we’re going to be. Part of our training preparation has to make sure we have those officers trained on field sobriety and the drug recognition. We remain open to working with the government to address some of those other challenges as they come forward.”
Meanwhile, a new pot dispensary has opened in London.
The Ontario government says 40 cannabis stores will open next year when marijuana is legalized and an online service will be open by the summer. But as Pare says, the government is also vowing to stamp out the remaining unsanctioned shops, like The London Relief Centre, which quietly opened its doors on Richmond Row last week.
“The provincial framework for the legislation addressed that those illegal dispensaries be shut down. We will continue to enforce that,” said Pare.
One hundred and fifty government-run dispensaries, all of them overseen by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, are supposed to be operating across the province by 2020.
The government introduced bill C-45 in the spring in preparation for an expected July 2018 date for adult Canadians to be allowed to buy pot at provincially mandated stores, possess up to 30 grams of marijuana or grow up to four plants at home.
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