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Legal cannabis comes with many unknowns: Red Deer County councillors

Councillors question how rural municipalities will be able to enforce cannabis regulations
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(File photo by BLACK PRESS)

A pair of Red Deer County councillors will greet legal weed Wednesday with a major dose of apprehension.

Municipalities are not ready for the widespread implications — many of them still unknown — of legalized recreational cannabis, said councillors Christine Moore and Jean Bota.

They both recently attended a cannabis information session at Poplar Ridge Hall that drew about 60 people.

“It was really, really interesting, and at times shocking, about what is ahead for us,” Moore told her colleagues at Tuesday’s council meeting.

In an interview, Moore detailed her concerns.

“Obviously, there isn’t the mechanism to police it. We’re literally writing the rules as we go along.

“They’ve the cart before the horse. In some ways, this should have been planned before they rolled out legalization.

“I think it’s going to put some pressure on us. As municipal leaders, it puts us in a challenging position because every municipality is different.”

Some municipalities have banned cannabis consumption in any public place. Others have not adopted such a widespread prohibition, some citing the impossibility of enforcing it.

Bota said she agrees with Moore and said the recent cannabis meeting only raised more concerns in her mind.

“I sat there and thought, ‘Why are we doing this?’” she said of legalization. “We’re not ready, and I see so much coming down on to the municipalities.”

The Rural Municipalities Association, which represents the province’s counties and municipal districts, warned this week that small urban communities and rural municipalities have not been given the funding necessary to enforce its cannabis bylaws.

The group says municipalities should be given half of federal cannabis excise tax revenues. One recent study projected legal sales of cannabis could top $4 billion next year.

The councillors point out that people will be allowed four cannabis plants in their homes. But who will enforce that, they ask.

“I do not think the RCMP are going to have the time and the inclination to go knocking on people’s doors,” Moore said.

If someone calls the county to complain that a neighbour has too many plants, it is unclear what the county could do about it, if anything.

“There are so many unknowns for me,” said Moore, adding other municipal representatives she has spoken with have similar concerns.

On top of what legalized cannabis will mean for municipalities are issues, such as the impact on health and impaired driving laws.