Hastings County Warden Says Federal Government Hasn’t Done Enough to Prepare For Marijuana Legalization

Hastings County Warden Rodney Cooney thinks the Federal government has rushed a lot marijuana legalization and haven’t done enough to prepare the county for it.

He says the affects legalization could have on employers hasn’t been fully thought-out by the Federal government. “They’re pushing their mandates forward but they haven’t given municipalities and private business a chance to deal with it,” he says.

Cooney wonders how productivity will be affected by legalization. It will put businesses in a hard place, he says. “You take our municipality in Stirling-Rawdon, we don’t have a lot of extra bodies standing around in case someone decides to become intoxicated,” he says. Cooney continues, “you can’t send them home according to the new bill, you have to find something for them to do.” He adds, “you don’t see a guy walking down the street with a bottle of beer or whiskey, but apparently you can walk down the street with a joint while on lunch. He says that would end up impairing them from doing their job properly. He added that it could be dangerous too, especially for workers in high-risk environments.

“As far as getting money back on cannabis revenue, I think that’s a pipe dream,” Cooney says. “It will probably stabilize itself in three to six months, but what’s the cost of that,” he added.

“I don’t think the Federal government has given employers enough info on what their rights are,” Cooney says. “They’re putting this through and will deal with the consequences after,” he says. Cooney continues, “the individual employers will deal with the consequences as far as i’m concerned.”

“I just don’t think they had any idea about what the cost will be of implementation will be,” Cooney concluded.

Marijuana will be legalized in Canada on October 17th.