Canadian Police Officers Allowed to Consume Marijuana After Legalization

Four cities in Canada officially passed legislation allowing the consumption of marijuana by police. The new policies, announced on October 5, will come into effect when Canada legalizes nationwide recreational use of cannabis on October 17.

Canada became the second country in the world to fully legalize marijuana in June of 2018 when the Senate voted to approve the Cannabis Act. Legislators designed the act to address the “needless criminalization” and the “prohibition model that inhibited and discouraged public health and community health in favor of just-say-no approaches,” stated Senator Tony Dean.

However, the act left some aspects of implementation up to the local governments, including the question of whether police officers will be allowed to partake in the now-legal substance. Vancouver, Ottawa, Regina, and Montreal say yes.

The four cities will treat cannabis just like any other legal mind-impairing substance. “We don’t tell our employees they cannot drink alcohol in their own time, away from work,” Regina police chief, Evan Bray, reminded reporters in a statement. Police departments will, of course, expect their officers to remain sober on the job, but Vancouver, Ottawa, Regina, and Montreal have decided they have no right to dictate what officers can and cannot do in their free time.

Other cities have taken the opposite approach. Calgary’s zero-tolerance policy penalizes officers for any consumption of cannabis. “[Officers] who are qualified to use firearms and are able to be operationally deployed, as well as sworn police recruits, are prohibited from using recreational cannabis on or off duty,” read a memo from the Calgary police department. This hardline approach met with significant backlash, however – the police officers’ union plans to fight the city for the right of their officers to partake in legal substances.

Many provinces remain undecided on their exact policies regarding the legalization of marijuana, including how they will test police officers for sobriety. A saliva testing kit, which has been used in Germany and the United Kingdom, seems the most likely option. The national government has given the provinces a grace period after the official legalization, within which the provinces will finalize their individual approaches to the new policies.