On Wednesday, Oct. 17, Marijuana is no longer illegal for adults 19 years of age or older in the country of Canada–and officials are already begging people to stop snitching on their neighbors for partaking in now legal activity. The only place in Canada that currently is not opening store locations for the recreational drug is the province of Ontario, who will partake in marijuana dispensary openings in April 2019.
In Toronto especially, the police department has asked for people to stop calling them for occurrences such as “an adult smoking a joint,” “neighbors growing weed plants” and “smelling weed coming from your neighbor’s home.” The Toronto Police Department has also released a number of humorous tweets to lighten the situation and also ask people to stop bothering them.
This tweet from the TPD compares calling 911 for directions when you are lost to calling the police on an adult smoking a joint:
This tweet from the TPD makes the comparison between calling 9-1-1 because you are out of minutes on your phone and would like them to call your friend for you, to calling the police on your neighbor’s pot plants.
This final tweet from the TPD compares calling 9-1-1 during a power outage and asking what to do with your frozen meat to smelling weed coming from people’s homes.
Although these tweets brought about some enlightenment and humor to this large social change across the country, they also shed light on just how impactful this change was. Similar to most voting and political issues, there is always a rather big gap in the beliefs of the older generations versus the younger generations.
It is no surprise that we see the same thing here: older generations are having a harder time accepting this new. It will eventually become the norm once those younger generations grow up and have children of their own, but for now, there is a lot of adjusting to be done for many people across Canada.