It is time for the Town of Barrhead and County of Barrhead to have a serious discussion about enacting a cannabis consumption bylaw.
It is something we asked for this summer and we are still waiting.
Ideally, not only are we asking that the two municipalities have this discussion, but enact a bylaw that determines where marijuana can be used in our perspective communities.
Failure to do so by default means that councillors agree with Alberta’s Cannabis Framework, which basically puts public cannabis usage in the same category as smoking and vaping.
Which basically means cannabis consumption will be legal in all public areas with a few exceptions, such as on hospital property, playgrounds, skateparks and splash parks.
Is that what the majority of Barrhead residents want? We doubt it.
But unless the municipalities enact a cannabis consumption bylaw, people will be free to use marijuana in practically any public area. If that means, as Whitecourt RCMP Sgt. Ted Zaddery said to Woodlands County councillors, if a person wants to sit on a park bench, near children who are playing, there is not much they or anyone else can do about it, because it is legal.
In our minds marijuana should be treated the same as alcohol when it comes to public consumption meaning at public venues such as public parks, sidewalks, streets, it should be prohibited.
Does that mean we are against people’s rights to use the substance? No. What people decide to do in their own home or property is up to them as long as it doesn’t adversely impact others.
People have the right not to be exposed and that right is taken away from them if the person next to them is smoking marijuana.
Second-hand marijuana smoke has proven to be detrimental to one’s health just like tobacco.
In 2016, a study published in the Journal of American Heart Association, Dr. Matthew Springer and his team at the University of California, San Francisco, exposed lab rats to secondhand-levels of both tobacco and marijuana smoke.
After one minute of exposure to either kind of smoke, the rat’s blood vessel function was impaired by about 50 per cent. The effect was short-term, but experts suspect that repeated exposures leads to long-lasting damage and poor cardiovascular health seen in cigarette smokers.
We have always been strong proponents of medical marijuana. If Health Canada and other medical experts who say that cannabis is beneficial when used the right way, under the supervision of a medical professional in the treatment of ailments such as the treatment of epilepsy and multiple sclerosis — who are we to say otherwise.
That being, said people still deserve to have a choice whether or not they are exposed to the product and the only way to do that is by restricting public use via bylaw.
