Original pot zoning bylaw fails, council to revisit issue in June.

With federal marijuana legalization looming on the horizon, Saskatoon City Council has voted against a zoning bylaw that would have set the rules around where marijuana vendors could place their shops.

The initial proposal stated that there would have to be a 160-metre separation distance between dispensaries and schools, parks, libraries and community centres. Stores in the Broadway area would receive a 60-metre buffer as an exemption.

However, a majority of councillors balked at the separation limit and voted against the bylaw.

Buffer zones around youth oriented facilities have been given initial approval as Moose Jaw City Council prepares for the eventual legalization of cannabis in Canada.

No cannabis shop will be allowed within 166m of any school and must stay at least 83m away from parks, daycares, the library or public recreation facilities but there is a small exemption for around Crescent Park where the buffer would be 60m in order to allow a portion of Main Street to be potentially used for a shop.

"We looked at the sensitive types of uses like schools, daycares, parks and libraries, areas where youth are congregating," explained Director of Planning Michelle Sanson. "We want to make sure that we are putting in some separation distances to accommodate those types of places."

Canada is only weeks away from the original promised legalization date for recreational cannabis.

But while the federal and provincial governments have been working quickly to set the rules and put plans in motion, it seems the municipal governments have been left in the dark, at least according to one Ontario Mayor.

Mayor of the City of Brantford, Chris Friel, addressed an audience of cannabis industry professionals in a panel discussion at Lift & Co.’s Business Conference last week. He expressed visible frustration over how the municipalities have not been informed on or given the proper resources for legalization. 

“We are not ready,” said Friel. “If we don’t know what the regulations are, we don’t know what we’re going to do.”

In 2012, Washington State voted to legalize marijuana. By 2014, the world’s first system for legally growing, processing and retailing cannabis was operating.

As Canada prepares to go live with pot sales in a few months, what can we learn from four years of practical, hands-on experience in the western United States?

The first take-away is that all the fretting about the impact on children and teens is largely unwarranted.

Before legalization, 17 per cent of Grade 10 students in Washington State said they had smoked pot in the previous month. Four years of legal doobies later, 17 per cent of Grade 10 students say they have smoked pot in the previous month.

If you can’t beat ’em, tax ’em

45

Total number of tax increases on beer in Canada since 2010

47 per cent

The average portion of the cost of a case of beer that goes to taxes

50,000

Canadians who have signed on to Beer Canada’s ‘Axe the Beer Tax’ campaign

10 per cent

The per-capita decline in beer sales over the past decade

Those impressive statistics are brought to you by Canada’s brewers. It’s no surprise, then, that they’re fretting over the pending legalization of marijuana, and urging the federal government to make us pay more in taxes.

New penalties under provincial Highway Traffic Act coming ahead of legal cannabis.

A significant aspect of dealing with legalized cannabis for recreational use is tied to policing and enforcement.

There is already a ban on drug-impaired driving under the Criminal Code of Canada, as RNC Const. Karen Didham noted while speaking with reporters about cannabis Monday at the Confederation Building.

Didham is a certified drug recognition evaluator — a key part of investigating those cases where there is possible driving under the influence of drugs.

“I’ve been testing specifically for drug-impaired driving for the last 12 years,” she said, explaining it begins when police have reason to believe a driver might have been exposed to drugs.

Four pieces of legislation detail province’s personal-use rules, which will allow homegrown marijuana.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has introduced more of its plans for the legalization of cannabis, including allowing the growing of plants at home.

Four pieces of legislation were revealed Monday and are being debated this week — the last week scheduled for the spring session of the House of Assembly.

“I expect it’s going to be a very long week in the House,” Progressive Conservative MHA Paul Davis said after highlighting some of his lingering questions to reporters, while raising more later in the day on the House floor.

"I have smoked marijuana when I was 18 years old."

Conservative Sen. Don Plett told a Senate committee Monday that he smoked marijuana 50 years ago and is now concerned he may be barred entry into the United States if a border agent asks.

The Manitoba senator made the admission as the government's pot czar, Liberal MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, appeared at the Senate's social affairs, science, and technology committee. The group is tasked with reviewing the government's marijuana legalization bill, clause by clause.

"Hope you give us your phone number that we can call you from the border," Plett said to Blair.

The federal government’s point man on the legalization of cannabis is preemptively rejecting any attempt by the Senate to delay the launch of the recreational market for the drug.

Liberal MP Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the ministers of health and justice, told a Senate committee on Mondaymore work will be needed in coming months to deal with the consequences of legalization on Native and other at-risk communities.

However, he said the legislation is needed to quickly launch a strictly regulated market for recreational cannabis that will put an end to the current regime based on prohibition.

'Cannabis is not coffee,' says justice minister, arguing there isn't a market to support private sales.

Members of the Northwest Territories legislative assembly focused on private cannabis sales as they publicly debated individual sections of Bill 6 — the territory's proposed Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Implementation Act — Monday morning.

The debate was part of a clause-by-clause review of the bill undertaken by the assembly's standing committees on social development and government operations before the bill is voted on in the Legislative Assembly. That vote is expected to come during the current sitting of the Legislative Assembly, which began on May 24.