Sault College’s plan to deal with legalized marijuana on campus remains in the budding stage, says the school’s director of student services.

Matt Trainor says the post-secondary institution has, for the last six to eight months, looked for provincial direction for forging firm local policy, as well as explored “whatever we can create” to ensure students use pot “safely” in accordance to Sault College policy.
“It’s a relevant issue for us, that’s for sure,” Trainor told The Sault Star in an interview.

Sault College has a smoking and tobacco use policy, with designated smoking areas pegged.

“Right now, if we were to go on with our status quo policy, it would be legal to smoke recreational cannabis in those designated areas, same as what we would allow with vaping and things like that,” Trainor said.
Smoking is not permitted in Sault College student residences.

“In the meantime, we haven’t made any final decisions on what we’re going to do with (pot) smoking,” he added.

The school is waiting to see if system-wide policy changes will be implemented on Ontario college campuses.

“We just don’t know yet,” Trainor said.

Preliminary planning calls for campus security to monitor pot use on school property.

“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do in terms of patrolling yet because we haven’t finalized any change to our policy,” Trainer said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he isn't backing down from his government's timeline for legalizing marijuana, despite a growing chorus of calls from senators, Indigenous leaders and others, to put off the plan for up to a year. A Senate committee report recently called for more consultation with First Nations on taxation, education materials and addictions treatment. However, the prime minister says the plan to make recreational pot legal by this summer will go ahead without delay.

The province has said recreational pot will be sold from behind counters, similar to a pharmacy, and only to individuals over 19, as is done with beer and liquor. All store employees will receive proper training.

“There’s a legal age limit, there is a limit on how much you can possess in terms of recreation,” Trainor said. “Things like that will be part of the education.”

Sault College plans to provide guidance on the topic, especially within student housing.

“We will do, obviously, a little bit extra in residence in terms of education because we have a captive audience there,” he added.

Late last year, Sault Ste. Marie was pegged as one of the first 14 designations across Ontario to have a cannabis site. A yet-to-be named location is scheduled to open in July. That list has since grown to about 40 stand-alone marijuana retail stores. The city has provided the province with an inventory of potential properties — zoned to accommodate the commercial outlet — based on criteria provided by the province that could be available. The Ontario government, which will ultimately determine where a cannabis retail store will be located, has said that it will follow guidelines designed to protect youth by ensuring stores are not in close proximity to schools and preventing illegal storefronts.

In terms of classroom conduct, Sault College faculty have the right to manage students and address any “behavioural or suspected intoxication issues,” Trainor said.

“So, if (students are) acting inappropriately, same as if they’re intoxicated by alcohol, they would be asked to leave,” he said, adding if an issue persisted, the matter would be dealt with under the student code of conduct “really, as a behavioural issue.”

“The other piece to that, if there’s support needed for the student to manage whether there’s an addiction or not, we would help that way,” Trainor said. “It’s just a little bit different now.”

Trainer said that, “quite honestly,” Sault College is well aware students currently use recreational pot.

 “And, so, we’ll see more instances of it, we suspect. We just need to be a little bit more prepared to recognize the signs and make sure that we’re clear on our expectations of behaviour in the class.”

Classroom safety, more so in college than in university, is a chief concern.

Both have labs but colleges offer programs in which intoxicated students could face severe harm, Trainor said.
“Welding is a good example where there’s lots of dangers in that shop,” he added.

Following the current professional development period, enforcement policy will be shared with faculty in August.

“Like every institution, we’re going to be learning this at the same time,” Trainor said. “We’re going to do our best to have the right campus environment. We know that we’re going to run into some challenges, for sure.”

Dealing with student use is one thing. But some Ontario schools plan to tap into legalization by providing related programs. Trainor didn’t say if Sault College’s has such plans but, for example in Ontario, Niagara College is working on a certificate in marijuana production and Durham College, in Oshawa, has launched a course that provides an introduction to all things cannabis. On Canada’s East Coast, New Brunswick Community College teaches cultivation.

But, in terms of student conduct, Trainor said Sault College’s counterparts are also studying the matter and most have not made final policy decisions.

“We all have an idea, but nobody is announcing anything yet,” he added.