As marijuana becomes legal in the coming week’s town council candidates, agree that it is something that needs to be closely regulated.
At the Smithers All Candidates Meeting Wednesday night, several candidates compared the needs to regulate marijuana to the current rules on consuming alcohol.
Incumbent Greg Brown expressed concern for how it will affect the public health.
“I am in line when people who say treat it like alcohol. People should not be exposed to marijuana smoke or even the act of smoking it, especially our children,” says Brown.
Brown adds while council may want to come down hard to this they could run into issues if the council bans it in all public spaces.
“it would become a by-law enforcement issue if you ramp-up enforcement it will increase our taxes,” says Brown.
Town council candidate Ryan Zapisocki took a different approach, focusing on what financial befits this could bring to the town.
“It was not a municipal decision to bring it in, but because it is coming and it legalized we should be focusing more on the opportunities it provides, and that means funding, government control for education, educating the public and educating the youth. I don’t advocate it myself. However, I think this is an opportunity to take advantage of something that already exists,” says Zapisocki.
Although no by-laws will be in place in time for the legalization, the town did hold a pop-up booth in late August as well as an open house on September 6 to get the communities opinion on how they wanted it handled.
Mayor of Smithers Taylor Bachrach says that the challenge municipal governments faced was having to wait for other levels of government to make decisions before the municipal governments could move forward.
Marijuana officially becomes legal in Canada as of October 17.