POLICE OFFICIALS QUESTION MOVE

Questions Raised About Getting High and Driving

WOODSTOCK - New marijuana reforms would create more roadblocks than they
would dismantle, local officials say.

Oxford Community Police Chief Ron Fraser and Oxford OPP detachment
commander Jack Goodlett were quick to question the idea of ticketing
offenders, suggesting it opens another bag of difficulties.

Both said detecting marijuana impairment in drivers is difficult and
decriminalization will do nothing to alleviate that problem. A roadside
screening test doesn't exist for marijuana.

If a driver is stopped and is in possession of 15 grams or less, police
would be allowed to issue a ticket and confiscate the drug, but that
doesn't take potentially pot-impaired drivers off the road.

"If your daughter gets run over by a car, how do we know if the driver was
impaired (by marijuana)? We can't detect it like we can if they've been
drinking," Fraser said. "We can detect it in a blood sample, but where's
our authority to get that?"

On the flip side, Goodlett said, proposed harsher penalties for growers
might help deter grow operations which have been increasing over the past
few years.

"As the maximum penalties go higher, hopefully the sentences handed down
will too," he said, adding current sentences rarely reach the maximum. "And
hopefully it will give more to think about if the price of running a grow
operation is higher."

Until the legislative reforms pass legislation, police say it will business
as usual on the street.

"We will be laying charges," said Fraser.

But while fines, rather than criminal charges, for small amounts of
possession may alleviate some pressure on the court system - one of the
main arguments in support of reform - the difference wouldn't be
noticeable, said Oxford federal Crown agent Michael Smith.

"They don't take up a lot of the docket - maybe, on average, three or four
cases a week," he said. "It's unlikely that those particular offences being
removed will have any appreciable effect on the length of time it takes to
get (other cases) to trial. For the most part, they're relatively simple
cases to prosecute.

"There are not a lot of unique issues involved in the prosecution of a
simple possession of marijuana charge."