The mayor of Chatham-Kent has serious concerns about the new recreational marijuana legislation unveiled by the Trudeau government last week.
Randy Hope tells BlackburnNews.com enforcement and addiction will become nightmares for municipalities.
Hope says federal legislation just sets the parameters and fears the issue will end up on the municipal lap to deal with the social and financial aspects.
"I can just see this thing rolling out to be a complete nightmare and an enforcement issue. It's nice the feds are going to get all this money and the provinces are going to get all this money, specially in the Province of Ontario. I'm sure they're going to use their own liquor control board and other things to distribute it. It's just going to create a bigger problem," says Hope.
The newly tabled legislation would allow those 18 and up to publicly possess up to 30 g of dried cannabis, or its equivalent in non-dried form.
Hope says there needs to be more discussion about legal pot to get it right because public health and safety are too important to rush through.
"People have the right to grow so much in their own personal properties," he says. "How many are going to be taking advantage of that and creating a black market?"
Hope says there are enough issues with medical marijuana and adding recreational pot to the mix isn't helping.
"They have approval to grow medical marijuana in their own homes and when you go and realize there's been a lot of activity around those homes, the next thing you know when you do a search, you find out they have permission and that information is not shared with local police," Hope says.