ONTARIO POLICE OFFICERS TOLD TO ENFORCE MARIJUANA LAWS

TORONTO -- The glory days for Ontario marijuana smokers are over, for now,
with police laying possession charges again after months of turning a blind
eye to public toking when possession laws were temporarily loosened. OPP
officers have been advised they can now enforce Canada's laws against
marijuana possession after a court ruling last week clarified that those
laws were constitutional.

Ontario's marijuana possession laws were called into question earlier this
year when a judge threw out a marijuana possession charge against a
16-year-old boy. His lawyer successfully argued that because there was no
effective program for sick people to possess medical marijuana without
breaking the law, then the law didn't prohibit possession. That ruling was
upheld on appeal. But a Court of Appeal ruling struck down parts of the
medical marijuana access program, making it, in the court's eyes,
constitutionally valid. By fixing the medical-marijuana program, the ruling
made the marijuana-possession laws constitutionally valid again.

By fixing the medical-marijuana program, the court ruling made the
pot-possession laws constitutionally valid again.

That ruling effectively sealed a legal loophole.

"They've now been given a green light," said Alan Young, a lawyer and
longtime legalization advocate who represented medical marijuana-users in
the most recent case.

Although police officers are only doing their jobs in upholding
pot-possession laws, Young said that some enforcement agencies have voiced
dissatisfaction with the law and have suggested it's a burden on their
resources.

"This is an ideal occasion for them to make their political views clearer
and actually tell the government that they're not interested in enforcing
the law anymore," Young said.

The advisory was sent out to provincial police officers last week after the
ruling, Crate said, but information wasn't readily available Thursday about
the number of pot-possession charges laid since then.

Sgt. Jim Muscat, a spokesman for the Metro Toronto Police Department, the
province's largest municipal police force, was also unable to provide
numbers on how many pot-possession charges have been laid since last week,
but said his officers would uphold the law.

"We're treating it the way we treated it before," he said. "The law is in
effect."

York Regional police, north of Toronto, also said they would start laying
possession charges but wouldn't investigate any possession incidents before
last week's ruling.