With legal marijuana just three weeks away, B.C. universities are busy figuring out if, and where, students can get high on campus.
Some post-secondary schools, like the University of British Columbia, are letting students smoke marijuana anywhere they can smoke cigarettes on campus – anywhere but recreational areas, near doorways or indoors.
The University of Victoria is also looking to create “cannabis-friendly” smoking areas.
But that’s about it.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, with campuses in Langley, Surrey and Richmond, adopted a smoke-free campus policy earlier this year.
“Holding or smoking lighted tobacco, electronic cigarettes or other related devices that produce smoke by plant-based materials will be prohibited on KPU property,” the policy states.
The B.C. Institute of Technology will bring in their cannabis use policy on Oct. 17 – the day the recreational drug becomes legal.
READ MORE: Are you ready for marijuana to be legal Oct. 17
Marijuana will be banned on its grounds in the Lower Mainland, and students and faculty will be prohibited from attending any event related to BCIT while under the influence.
“Given the safety-sensitive nature of many of the programs offered at BCIT, impairment of any kind can have serious adverse effects on our community,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
The University of the Fraser Valley will ban the sale of any cannabis products and forbids the smoking of any substance on campus.
Langara College in Vancouver and Trinity Western University in Langley, both smoke-free grounds, will continue in that vein. Douglas College, in Coquitlam and New Westminster, went smoke-free on Sept. 1, in anticipation of legal cannabis.
Simon Fraser University is still working on a policy, but in an email to Black Press Media noted that staff will focus on how recreational cannabis could create “unsafe conditions and occupational hazards.”
Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops has banned the smoking of recreational pot, or selling cannabis, anywhere on its campus.
Selkirk College in the Kootenays is still developing their cannabis policy but smoking tobacco is banned within 10 metres of buildings.
Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo has banned cannabis on all its campuses and in any university-owned vehicles.
The provincial government has banned the smoking of cannabis everywhere where tobacco smoking is banned, as well as at playgrounds, sports fields and skate parks.
Editor’s note: An earlier copy of this story stated that Selkirk College was a smoke-free campus.
