Victoria’s top cop says the next step in reforming Canada’s drug laws should be finding a way to deal with marijuana-impaired drivers.
The recent Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police annual meeting endorsed issuing tickets rather than pressing criminal charges for possession of a small amount of marijuana. The resolution, for possession of 30 grams or less, was endorsed by Victoria’s Jamie Graham and Saanich’s Mike Chadwick.
“The bigger discussion for us has to be the issue of driving,” Graham said. “We passed a motion through the B.C. Chiefs of Police about a year ago challenging the scientific community to come up with a hand-held roadside tester.”
It should be similar to the devices used to gauge blood-alcohol levels, Graham said, adding that there are devices developed in Europe that use a mouth swab and can detect drug levels within seven minutes.
Chadwick said issuing tickets would mean simple marijuana possession could be dealt with quickly rather than taking weeks or months in court.
There would be a direct and timely consequence for illegal behaviour, Chadwick said.
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
But Nanaimo lawyer Randie Long, a board member of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said ticketing would give too much discretion to officers and police departments.
The real issue, he said, is whether the law is fair.
“You can’t have professional law enforcement and you can’t have fair law enforcement on the basis of discretion,” Long said. “Either the law is just or it’s unjust.”
Saanich officers already use discretion in cases involving one or two marijuana cigarettes at events such as Canada Day, Sgt. Steve Eassie said.
As when police pour out alcohol but don’t charge the drinker, a person caught smoking pot might undergo “a no case seizure” — meaning the pot is seized and they’re sent on their way without a criminal charge.
A campaign promoting a referendum on decriminalizing simple possession of pot will be in Victoria today. It’s part of a tour of the Island by Sensible B.C.’s Dana Larsen.
Larsen wants the federal government to repeal marijuana prohibition so that B.C. can regulate its cultivation and sale.
He said he has proposed a law accepted by Elections B.C., and will have 90 days to collect signatures from 10 per cent of registered voters in every electoral district, beginning Sept. 9. The 400,000 necessary signatures can only be collected by people who have registered as canvassers.
Larsen will be recruiting canvassers at Moxie’s restaurant on Yates Street at 1 p.m. and at Stick in the Mud coffee house on Eustace Road in Sooke at 4 p.m.
In November 2012, voters in Washington and Colorado voted to legalize some recreational marijuana use.
