No public smoking of cannabis says M.D. public usage bylaw

The M.D. passed their public usage of cannabis bylaw Wednesday.

There were no changes after the first and second reading passed at the last council meeting.

Campground users will be prohibited from smoking cannabis in their camping stalls and would have to smoke it in their camper instead.

The bylaw adds that cannabis cannot be smoked in any public place, workplace, public transportation vehicle, or any private motor vehicle, with the exception of a temporary residence like an RV.

The penalty for using cannabis in a public place or vehicle is $400.

“It’s still really a conservative approach to dealing with marijuana,” said Reeve Greg Sawchuk.

“This is probably one of those items that moves after we have a little bit more knowledge about how it’s affecting the community. It’s likely to be revisited. But it was a case where the province downloaded all of this responsibility onto the municipalities instead of coming out and saying how this was going to be dealt with provincially, but now we’re even tasked with some of the policing of this with our officers.

“You can imagine the difficulties without peace officers how they’re trying to deal with it. This is going to be a moving target in the future for sure.”

The concerns of public smoking at campgrounds was that the smell would impact other campers.

The approach is to treat cannabis similarly to alcohol, said deputy Reeve Ben Fadeyiw two weeks ago.