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Nov. 16, 2017

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At this point, we have a comparable entity in what are called consumption lounges or compassion lounges, where people who have medicinal prescriptions and medical requirements go to ingest their medicine and do it alongside of other people in a social setting. I can tell you that the one that exists in Windsor—and I want to give a shout-out to Jon Liedtke, who is the owner of that facility—is one that is appreciated by local law enforcement because folks are doing it in a private setting. They are doing it of their own volition—nobody is forced to go in there—and they are not harming anybody else who doesn’t want to be in there. They all understand that they’re all medicinal users. It’s a form of, I guess, essentially taking it out of the public and putting it into a prescribed area.

The bill at this moment doesn’t allow for that. It says that at a future point the government may potentially identify areas where that is the case.

Mr. Taras Natyshak, ESSEX MPP

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Hansard Transcripts 2017-Nov-16 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario (ola.org)

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