Canada - Pot charges drop in 2016, Statistics Canada reports

[S.J.B.]

Pot charges drop in 2016, Statistics Canada reports
Joanna Smith
CBC
July 24th, 2017

The number of cannabis-related offences reported to police declined for the fifth straight year, Statistics Canada said Monday as it released its annual report on police-reported crime.

There were about 55,000 offences related to marijuana reported to police in 2016, about 6,000 fewer than reported the year before, despite the percentage of Canadians consuming the drug on the rise.

The agency said police charged 17,733 people with the possession of pot last year, a drop of about 3,600 from 2015.

The Liberal government has introduced legislation to legalize marijuana by next summer, but won't decriminalize simple possession in the face of NDP requests to do so in the interim.

Statistics Canada said the combined rate of drug-related offences for substances other than cannabis and cocaine, which has also been on the decline, has been increasing since 2010.

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[S.J.B.]

Pot charges rise in Montreal despite downward trend in rest of Canada
Roberto Rocha, Verity Stevenson
CBC
July 25th, 2017

Marijuana charges are on the rise in Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec, while in the rest of Canada cannabis-related charges are declining ahead of Ottawa's plans to legalize the drug.

The number of cannabis-related charges has ebbed countrywide from last year, continuing a downward trend since a peak in 2011.

For Canadians older than 12, 17,700 were charged with possession last year, according to police-reported statistics released by Statistics Canada. This is down from 21,300 in 2015.

More serious charges of trafficking were also down, while production and importation charges remained flat but relatively low.

This trend was observed across most provinces, and in many of them, the rate of charges is the lowest on record.

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