Recreational marijuana becomes legal next Wednesday and police are still getting ready.

“To be 100 per cent ready, I don’t think any police service is 100 per cent ready, because a lot of it is unknown,” North Bay Police Chief Shawn Devine told BayToday following Tuesday’s Police Services Board meeting.

He says they received a document about what is being done in other areas and they’ll have a discussion with their association around standing operating procedure.

Devine also reminds people that drug-impaired driving is still illegal.

“I just want to make it very clear we still do have tools with regards to impairment other than alcohol, we have members that are trained with regards to drug recognition,” he says.

Deputy Police Chief Scott Tod says they’ve done a lot of work to get ready.

He says on top of the chief bringing back information from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police conference, they’ve done a lot of field sobriety testing with their members and they’ve sent two officers away on the drug recognition expert course at the Ontario Police College and in Florida.

“It’s an expensive undertaking for the service, hopefully next year we’ll have another two to four members attend that. Eventually we’d like everyone in patrol to have the field sobriety testing,” he says.

Tod says they have not purchased any equipment yet, as they’re awaiting testing by larger police services on it.

Recreational cannabis becomes legal on October 17th.

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