While the mayor of Montreal recently threatened to crack down on several recreational cannabis storefronts that opened today, the city’s of Saskatoon’s chief of police said there is no sense making pot-related arrests given that legalization is coming soon.
“We know it’s coming. We want to work with it,” police Chief Clive Weighill told the CBC earlier today. “There’s no use fighting it all the way: We’ll just look like people who can’t get with the program.”
A federal government task force announced earlier this week that legalized cannabis sales should be restricted to those 18 and older and people should only be able to have 30 grams on them at a time.
Weighill said one challenge is coming up with a legal limit for marijuana that shows when a person is impaired. RCMP and other police forces across the country also launched a pilot project yesterday to help test drivers they suspect of being too high to drive using roadside saliva tests that measure THC, as well as other drugs.
He also cautioned against believing that legalization will get rid of the black market around the drug.
“The cartels are in the business for making money and they’ll find any way they can,” he said. “We’re already seeing in Washington and Colorado wherever the price point is for legalized marijuana, they’re undercutting it and there’s still lots of illegal activity happening with marijuana. So, there’s still going to be work for the police on this; there may even be more work.”