Canadians might be thinking more seriously about legalizing pot, but that doesn’t mean police are easing up on putting down charges for cannabis possession.

The number of arrests for cannabis possession across the country jumped by about 16 per cent in 2010, to 56,853 arrests. That number has continued to hover above that level each year across the country. In 2014, the number of possession charges nationally dropped by three per cent compared to the year before, only cancelling out a slight rise in possession charges from 2012 to 2013.

The most recent surveys suggest that the marijuana consumption rate amongst the general population has barely changed since 2008.

Legalizing cannabis has been a hot topic in the federal election campaign, prompting a fiery exchange between Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Stephen Harper at last Friday’s French language debate. Polls from last year show a majority of Canadians support legalizing pot, and the Liberals, NDP, Green Party and Bloc Québécois all support decriminalizing it, or outright making it legal.

Medical marijuana use has been legal in Canada since 2001, and a Supreme Court decision earlier this year chipped away some restrictions on its medical use. Those with medical permits can now possess marijuana in any form, not just the dried form which can only be consumed by smoking it.

But fewer restrictions and public support for legalization does not mean weed is legal in the eyes of law enforcement: that’s something that concerns people like Ottawa activist and medical marijuana user Russell Barth. He’s legally allowed to carry marijuana to counter post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain from fibromyalgia – but the shifting legal status of medical marijuana use has him worried that he or his wife (also a prescription user) could be caught up in the stagnant enforcement rates of marijuana possession laws.

“I’m terrified every moment of every day – my wife has epilepsy and very often I have to use a [vaporizer] pen,” he explained. “So if an officer stops us, then I have to explain to some jacked up 20-something that this is cannabis oil and it was made legal in a court ruling last spring – I have to explain court decisions to them.”

But Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University, believes that there’s overall less desire for tough punishments like prison time for people caught with a little marijuana, even if police continue to lay charges.

“There’s not much appetite anymore … there’s appetite for enforcement but not for giving people criminal records,” he said.

Ottawa Police have openly admitted this: at a Police Services committee meeting in 2009, then-police chief Vernon White (now a Conservative Senator) said that police did not aim to land young people with criminal records for marijuana possession. However, that did not stop Ottawa police from laying 11 per cent more charges for marijuana possession in the year following the chief’s claims.

According Montreal-based lawyer Max Silverman, courts are becoming more relaxed about marijuana possession – but he warns that people can still end up with their lives upended by a criminal record if they’re caught with a little weed, recalling one young man’s case he witnessed in court.

“The prosecutor offered a plea deal where he would plead guilty and accept a fine, I believe of $150. He walked away thinking that that was the end of it, but didn’t realize that in the process he had pled guilty to a criminal charge.”

For Silverman, cannabis arrests ultimately come as no surprise.

“There’s a misconception that somehow marijuana and small possession of marijuana has become legal or decriminalized in Canada,” he said. “This is not the case.”

Ottawa Police were unable to offer comment.