The Swift Current City RCMP held their fall town hall meeting at Elmwood Golf Course Thursday night, and the topic of drugs received much of the focus.

Staff Sergeant Gary Hodges presented along with Sergeant Kelly Guider, while Perry Pelletier and Don Kyllo were also in attendance representing the detachment.

About 20 members of the public made it out on the cold night.

Cannabis was legalized on October 17, and people were interested in how that was going from a policing standpoint.

Hodges said they haven't encountered any drivers they suspect were impaired by marijuana since legalization. But both businesses in Swift Current that have licenses to sell recreational marijuana have yet to open.

Hodges said since legalization, there hasn't been much of a change from a policing perspective, other than some officers have issued tickets related to public consumption under new provincial statutes.

As far as drugs go, it's harder stuff that's causing issues.

Hodges said they're focusing on problems in the community related to opiates and synthetic drugs.

He said the detachment hasn't encountered much fentanyl, and it doesn't appear to be on the rise in town as far as their busts have gone. Instead methamphetamine has been more prevalent.

"It's definitely here. I mean, if you wanted to define it as, label it a problem or it's present or whatever, it definitely exists within the community. We're seeing numerous seizures involving crystal meth anytime we execute search warrants or even when we come across it in vehicles at different times."

Similar to the last town hall meeting they held in the spring, traffic around town, and in particular, semis illegally parked on the service roads alongside Highway 1, was also brought up.

"In some instances around the community if some sees, for instance, a vehicle speeding, they can provide us with a license plate number and a statement and we can charge the registered owner of that vehicle. But when it comes to semitractors and trailers, the trailer, if someone provides us a license plate to that, is not registered necessarily to the same company as the tractor, and it's the tractor license plate that we would require to charge the registered owner, because the trailer didn't get itself there on its own. It was parked there by the tractor so to speak, so those are some of the other challenges."

Guider had stats showing that since the town hall meeting on April 26 they've laid 32 charges in relation to those parking offences.

Semis using a jake break and gearing down while travelling on Highway 4, or Memorial Drive, around the Innovation Credit Union iPlex were also a concern because of the noise.

But Hodges said it was important to let people know where policing priorities lie.

The police are focused on drug enforcement and impaired driving initiatives. But beyond that, when there are calls of service, he said officers have to turn to those and put things like illegal parking on the backburner temporarily.