By Greg Fry

Kamloops mayor weighs in on provincial pot legislation

Apr 27, 2018 | 2:11 PM

KAMLOOPS — A mixed reaction from Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian in regards to the provincial non-medical cannabis legislation rolled out this week.

On Thursday, Victoria said its proposed Cannabis Disribution Act will establish the province’s exclusive jurisdiction over whole distribution of cannabis. It also laid out other facets of the legislation including establishing an extensive compliance and enforcement regime to ensure children and youth are protected and that cannabis is kept out of the hands of criminals and keeps roads safe.

“I think they’ve done a good job as far as they’ve gone (but) they’ve left a few holes, though,” Christian says. “The issues related to access to youth I think is really important. We have to be conscious that brains in adolescence can be adversely affected by marijuana use on a permanent basis. They’ve also addressed the issue of impaired driving; those are two good things. But they came up short in terms of looking at the distribution of taxation and how much of that will go to local government.”

So, how big a piece of the pie is he expecting Kamloops to receive?

“The provinical government negotiated 75 per cent of the revenue from taxation will go to the provincial government and 25 to the feds. Now out of that 75 that they got, I would like to see half of that come to local government.”

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As for how the city’s cut would be spent, Christian says part of it would go toward the direct impacts of legalizing marijuana.

“First of all, policing costs, our zoning department, our business license department, bylaw enforcement, property use inspectors. Those kinds of things are real costs that right now are being passed on to the taxpayers in Kamloops who really weren’t the ones to decide to legalize marijuana. So, I would like to see the government come good with those real costs.”

He says the rest of the money would go toward social responsibility initiatives “that deal with drug use and in particular cannabis use.”

Non-medical cannabis is set to be legalized in Canada this summer.