CLARIFY POT LAW, COPS SAY

Until Ottawa Or The Courts Act, Area Forces Vary In Handling Pot Possession
Cases.

Police in Southwestern Ontario are taking different approaches to enforcing
pot possession while they wait for the law to be clarified. The status of
the law was thrown in doubt May 16 when a Windsor Superior Court judge
ruled simple pot possession is no longer illegal.

The Justice Department has filed a motion in the Ontario Court of Appeal to
stay the decision.

Until the courts or Ottawa clarify the law, some police departments say
they won't lay charges for possessing less than 30 grams of marijuana.

Police forces across the region are taking different approaches:

- - In London, police won't lay charges against people found with less than
30 grams of marijuana. Police will seize the drugs and write up the
paperwork, but not process it through the courts.

- - In Chatham-Kent, police will arrest and charge people with possession of
less than 30 grams, but they have delayed issuing summonses to appear in
court for four months. If the law changes, charges will be dropped, police
Chief Carl Herder said.

- - In Sarnia, it's business as usual with officers using their discretion on
whether to lay charges.

- - OPP officers will seize marijuana and document the incident, but will not
make arrests or lay charges until the law is clarified, a spokesperson said.

"The courts have got to make some decision, but more importantly, the
Canadian government is going to have to make it clearer," said Sarnia
police Const. George Linton.

This week, Tom Kaye, president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of
Police, asked Ontario chiefs to advise officers to use discretion with
simple possession charges.

Kaye said police should process anyone found with under 30 grams of
marijuana, lock the drugs in a vault, complete the required paperwork and
await a decision from the appeals court.

London police Chief Brian Collins said he has asked his officers to do that.

"Where we have evidence of possession, we will not be processing the
charges through the courts until such time as the legal issues around the
law are cleared up," Collins said yesterday.

But until the law is clarified, Collins said, people shouldn't think they
can walk around the city smoking pot.

"They would be very foolish, I would say, as an individual to think that
this is some sort of licence now to go out and abuse because it may turn
out that they're facing some charges a week or two down the road."

The ambiguity about the status of the law left Collins frustrated yesterday.

He said citizens are getting mixed messages and the federal government is
creating "utter confusion."

Collins said he has received calls from Londoners who are angry and
confused about what's happening.

"Our leaders in government have an obligation to put resolve to this
issue," he said. "The message that's going out is contradictory at best."

The Windsor court decision prompted federal prosecutors in London to stay
dozens of charges late last month of possession of less than 30 grams of pot.

That move came a day after the federal government tabled legislation to
decriminalize simple pot possession.