Former Toronto police chief is now leading the Trudeau government's marijuana legalization project.
Lucas Oleniuk / Toronto Star file photo
Toronto's former top cop, Bill Blair, had voiced support for the
Liberal position on marijuana even before being elected to office,
saying the current laws had done little to keep marijuana out of the
hands of young people or organized crime from profiting from its sale.
OTTAWA—MP Bill Blair, the former Toronto
police chief now leading the Trudeau government’s marijuana legalization
project, says provincial liquor stores may be the most reasonable place
from which to control legal cannabis sales because of the ability to
restrict youth access to the drug.
Blair, as parliamentary secretary to Justice
Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, has been asked to craft the government’s
policy, working with a three-member cabinet team and a
federal-provincial-territorial task force that hasn’t yet been struck,
the justice minister’s office said.
Blair defended the Liberal plan
from a public safety perspective on Friday while acknowledging that the
government has “some work to do” to address public concerns.
He wouldn’t speculate how long it would take
to conduct “wide consultations” with public health, law enforcement and
provincial and territorial counterparts before a bill is drafted. But
Blair said the federal government is looking at the experience in
Colorado, Washington state and other jurisdictions that have legalized
marijuana sales and distribution where a range of stores, cafés and
other retail outlets have sprung up to supply legal marijuana.
“We have pretty robust systems of regulation
for other intoxicants in this country, mostly overseen by the provinces
and so we’ve already got a model, a framework we can build on here,” he
said. “But we want to learn from the experiences of places like Colorado
and Washington.
“I think there are certain modifications or
adjustments that we may have to make for cannabis as opposed to alcohol,
but I think there is already a strong system in place for the control
and regulation” of marijuana sales here, Blair said.
Should the federal government go that route,
it will find willing partners in Manitoba and Ontario. Premier Kathleen
Wynne said last month that legalized marijuana should be sold at
provincially owned and regulated Liquor Control Board of Ontario
outlets, which are staffed by trained, unionized employees.
“It makes sense to me that the liquor
distribution mechanism that we have in place at LCBO is very well-suited
to putting in place the social responsibility aspects that would need
to be in place,” Wynne said Dec. 14.
Blair said it is “very difficult” for a
14-year-old youth to walk into a liquor store where alcohol is retailed
in Ontario and buy a bottle of booze. “You’re going to come up against a
government employee who’s got regulations to enforce and is going to
ask for identification and if a person’s under age, they’re not going to
be able to buy that.
“And that’s a far better way to regulate
access (to marijuana) for kids than leaving it up to some criminal in a
stairwell. Frankly, in most urban centres across this country, it is far
easier for a kid, an under-aged youth, to acquire marijuana than it is
to acquire alcohol.”
Blair said there still needs to be strict
regulation and a penalty for supplying alcohol and cannabis to
youngsters “and those laws need to be enforced, but it doesn’t
necessarily have to be done under the criminal law.” He pointed to a
2014 study
produced by the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health that
recommended legalization with strict regulation to control the social
and health harms associated with marijuana use. “All of that made
perfect sense to me as a police chief and as a person responsible for
community safety.”
Blair’s appointment to help steer marijuana
law reforms won early praise from Canada’s police chiefs, who continue
to voice caution about the proposed changes, after calling in 2013 for
Ottawa to give police discretionary power to issue a ticket for simple
possession of small amounts of marijuana. It was a recommendation the
Harper government never acted on.
Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill, who is
president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said Blair
has a “formidable challenge” ahead but would understand policing
concerns given his background.
Weighill said there will be “many questions
and concerns” that will need to be addressed, depending on how the
government decides to move ahead with its pledge. “From a policing
perspective, youth access to marijuana will always remain a concern as
will the impact on impaired driving. There will be a significant impact
on the training of our officers and the need for more drug recognition
experts in the field,” he said.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police
said it supported the statement by the Canadian association.
Blair
served as president of both during his time as Toronto police chief.
Bill Blair on marijuana
Toronto Star: Have you ever smoked pot?
Bill Blair: No and, interestingly enough, I
worked on the drug squad in Toronto for years. I worked undercover, I’ve
purchased a lot of marijuana but I’ve never used it.
And why is that?
I’ve never used any illegal drug. A personal
choice. Growing up my dad was a cop and I didn’t want to disrespect my
father as a young teenager and then when I became a police officer
myself I worked in that area but never felt inclined to use any illegal
drug.
Not even curious to know as a cop why people would be drawn to it?
Nope. It was my job. I worked in that community, in the culture for years.
I actually worked in organized drug crime as well for about four years, manned the organized drug crime units in Toronto.
I’ve dealt with that as a police officer for a
long time, but I’ve never used it. … One of the first times I had to
buy drugs as an undercover officer, I had to buy hash oil. It was in an
apartment.
Somebody brought out a wine bottle with a hole
in the bottom of it and offered it to me (to smoke hash oil), and I
didn’t have a clue what to do with it.
What did you do?
You talk fast. You buy the drugs. And you get out fast.
How do you think that frames your thinking about the legalization issue?
I was a police officer for 38 and a half
years, but I was also responsible as a police chief for the safety of
communities and the safety of kids in the city…I came to believe there
was a better way.
Simply dealing with marijuana with a criminal sanction and a criminal sanction alone wasn’t achieving what we wanted to do.
It wasn’t keeping it out of the hands of kids;
it wasn’t preventing organized crime from controlling its distribution
and sale in our neighbourhoods; it wasn’t reducing the violence and
victimization that takes place in poor neighbourhoods; it didn’t address
the disparity of the impact of that law enforcement that takes place in
minority communities much more than in majority communities.
Do you think the public’s ready?
I think we’ve got some work to do. I think
we’ve got to listen to people, we’ve got to listen to their concerns and
then we’ve got to address those concerns, and that’s a bit of work, but
it’s necessary.
But I think the public is open to a smarter
approach to this particular issue and just doing nothing, and allowing
the criminal law to be more or less ignored…I don’t think we have much
prospect of succeeding in trying to address the things that concern us
about marijuana, particularly use by youth...with the current reliance
on the criminal sanction.
I am actually quite confident that we can do a much better job through strict regulation."
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