Montreal police officers will be allowed to smoke cannabis outside of working hours so long as they are \u201cfit for duty\u201d once legalization comes into effect on Oct. 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf for example, one of your colleagues notices that they\u2019re unfit for duty, you know because they seem impaired, they seem dizzy, there\u2019s something wrong,\u201d Insp. Andr\u00e9 Durocher said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019re going to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The announcement, which was made on Wednesday as the city unveiled its marijuana action plan, is a stark contrast to other policies taken by police forces across Canada.<\/p>\n
In Toronto<\/a>, police officers will be banned from consuming recreational marijuana within 28 days of reporting for duty.\u00a0The RCMP has adopted a similar tone<\/a>, barring Mounties from using cannabis one month before any shift.<\/p>\n The rule is stricter in Edmonton<\/a>, where police officers will not be allowed to consume, smoke or use cannabis at all when it becomes legal next week.<\/p>\n In Montreal, however, a zero-tolerance policy is not part of the city\u2019s approach. Durocher said the \u201cfit for duty\u201d principle is what the police force currently enforces when it comes to the use of any substances \u2014 whether that is cannabis, alcohol or medication.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the same for anything else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0Legault says he\u2019ll raise Quebec\u2019s marijuana age to 21<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Durocher said the city\u2019s marijuana plan was created \u201caccording to our culture, our organization and what we think is best,\u201d and that it is the best way to ensure the \u201csafety of our officers and of our population.\u201d<\/p>\n The move comes exactly one week before recreational cannabis becomes legal across the country. Canadians over the age of 18 or 19, depending on the province, will be allowed to buy and possess marijuana.<\/p>\n In Quebec, however, the newly-elected Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec government has pledged to raise the age from 18 to 21. The move would mean the province would have the highest age requirement for cannabis across the country.<\/p>\n \u2014 With files from Gloria Henriquez, Amanda Connolly and The Canadian Press<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montreal police officers will be allowed to smoke cannabis outside of working hours so long as they are \u201cfit for duty\u201d once legalization comes into effect on Oct. 17. \u201cIf for example, one of your colleagues notices that they\u2019re unfit for duty, you know because they seem impaired, they seem dizzy, there\u2019s something wrong,\u201d Insp. Andr\u00e9 Durocher said. \u201cThat\u2019s how… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-2140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-https-globalnews-ca-news-4535585-montreal-police-officers-marijuana-legalization-policy-fit-for-duty-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}