Pubdate: Thu, 21 Jul 2016
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329

POT AND A HARD PLACE

Ottawa is now a Wild West of potrepreneurs. The city and police have 
been left in an awkward position by the federal Liberal government, 
which has sparked up a marijuana retail race but won't introduce 
legislation to legalize it until next spring.

If legalization is going ahead, it needs to happen in a sensible, smart way.

As local councillors note, we probably don't want stores - such as 
the nine dispensaries that have popped up across Ottawa already - 
selling weed across from local schools, just as we don't locate LCBOs 
or strip clubs there.

The current situation is a mess. The recreational trade is illegal, 
yet there are no controls over who is peddling pot in our communities.

Illegal dispensaries undercut the legitimate businesses that have 
jumped through the hoops to legally sell medicinal marijuana.

New zoning and bylaw rules would allow for a sensible approach to 
dispensaries. But the city doesn't seem to know just yet what it can 
actually do. How can you regulate something that's already illegal? 
Vancouver, however, licensed and zoned dispensaries, setting out 
rules for how they operate, after local cops said they wouldn't be 
raiding dispensaries.

Canadian cities need the tools to keep residents safe and ensure pot 
is kept away from kids.

Earlier this year, Toronto police felt compelled to raid dozens of 
shops in that city. We may see the same in Ottawa, though it's likely 
a waste of police time and resources to do so.

Yet we wouldn't blame the police for trying to do their jobs.

Police have said they're aware of the shops, and they're 
investigating. So what's coming next is unclear.

Cops are caught between the pot and a hard place. "The law is in 
force and it should be obeyed," Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould 
has said, meaning this commercial recreational trade is still illegal.

So what are police to do? Moreover, if people are arrested, what is 
the Crown to do?

The federal Liberals have created this frenzy of entrepreneurs, but 
the lag time for changing the law, and thus allowing for local 
regulation, is leaving cities and authorities in an untenable situation.

We need clarity. The hazy approach by the feds is only causing chaos. 
And it was entirely foreseeable - unless your head was in the clouds.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom