Marijuana laws inconsistently applied in B.C.

by Carlito Pablo on July 31st, 2013 at 2:30 PM

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Former MLA and ex–Vancouver police officer Kash Heed expects the courts to eventually deal with the inconsistent application of marijuana laws in B.C.

“The courts will need to address this, and I think they will in the future,” Heed told the Straight in a phone interview.

He noted that there is a “de facto decriminalization” in Vancouver, where police officers do not pursue simple possession of cannabis. “But you just have to step outside of the jurisdiction of Vancouver and you find a different practice in place by the RCMP,” Heed said. He added that other independent municipal police departments do not have consistent policies regarding this matter.

Sensible Change Society director Dana Larsen is leading a campaign for an initiative vote to amend the Police Act. It aims to direct all police forces in the province to stop going after people who possess marijuana for personal consumption.

A study prepared by SFU criminology professor Neil Boyd and funded by Larsen’s Sensible B.C. campaign indicates that the province doubled its spending on pot enforcement between 2005 and 2011.

Heed anticipates major challenges to Larsen’s campaign. “I think if this initiative passes, there will be roadblocks put up by not only law enforcement—that being mainly the RCMP—but certainly the provincial government will put up roadblocks to this,” he said. “And they’ll use the easy way out, and say this is a federal issue.”

Although the B.C. Green Party supports in its platform the decriminalization and regulation of marijuana, it is only going to watch the initiative-vote campaign from the sidelines.

Part of this is due to “complications” related to the nature of policing in the province, according to Green Leader Jane Sterk.

“I think there are complications in the fact that we have a federal police force as a policing service in most of British Columbia,” Sterk told the Straight in a phone interview. “I think it would be very difficult for the province to say to the RCMP, ‘We’re asking you not to enforce federal laws.’ ”

The RCMP E Division for B.C. declined to comment on the marijuana initiative-vote campaign.

Comments

5 Comments

citizen x

Jul 31, 2013 at 3:49pm

simple solution: get the criminal RCMP out of BC and replace with a legitimate police force

Skippy Kangaroo

Jul 31, 2013 at 7:54pm

Sterk says:

“I think it would be very difficult for the province to say to the RCMP, ‘We’re asking you not to enforce federal laws.’ ”

I think that would not just be difficult, but completely impossible.

dana larsen

Jul 31, 2013 at 10:15pm

BC and other provinces tell the police what to do all the time.

For instance, in BC we have decriminalize impaired driving, by telling the police not to lay charges under the Criminal Code and instead deal with it under non-criminal provincial regulations. I don't hear the RCMP or the feds complaining about this.

BC and 7 other provinces decriminalized possession of an unregistered long gun back in 2003 by telling police to ignore this violation of federal law.

So we're not asking for anything that hasn't been done before when it comes to this form of decriminalization. Policing is provincial jurisdiction and the RCMP will do as they're told.

tripper

Jul 31, 2013 at 10:42pm

this is exactly what i said to larsen in one of his forums

pushback from rcmp and small town mayors not wanting to see policing costs go up if the rc's cannot patrol them anymore...easy for the RCMP to drum up that fear amongst the town mayors et al.