Pubdate: Sat, 25 Apr 2015
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Gary Mason
Page: S1

DISPENSARY CHANGES WILL OPEN CANNABIS'S CAN OF WORMS

Medicinal marijuana dispensaries have been hiding in plain view in
Vancouver for years now. Places like the Green Panda and The Healing
Tree have operated in downtown locations with the full knowledge of
the city and police who have chosen to look the other way.

To imagine that federal authorities have not also been aware of the
proliferation of these establishments defies belief. They are everywhere.

But Ottawa, too, has had bigger fish to fry, and consequently, was
happy to put its hands over its eyes and ignore the situation. That is
until the city announced it was going to start regulating the
businesses to stanch their rapid growth while making some cash from
licensing.

To all appearances, it looks like the city is trying to regulate the
sale of marijuana, even if, as it insists, it is really trying to
bring some order to a chaotic situation. But in the process, it opened
a can of worms the federal government could no longer ignore, given
its current war on weed.

This has resulted in the showdown we are now witnessing, with federal
Health Minister Rona Ambrose urging the city to halt its plan
immediately and the city telling the feds it intends to proceed as
planned.

We now have what amounts to an ideological war between a conservative
government and a left-wing civic party set against the backdrop of a
looming federal election. And don't think that this is not about
politics, too.

Ms. Ambrose has recently been speaking out about the health risks of
marijuana for youth. More broadly, the Conservatives have taken a hard
line against drug use and some of the more controversial treatments to
address it. That plays well in the Chinese and South Asian
communities, constituencies that are going to be vital to the
Conservatives come this fall's election.

In Vancouver, the government's stern attitude toward the pot
dispensaries appears designed to undermine Justin Trudeau's acceptance
among the two crucial ethnic groups mentioned.

The federal Liberal leader has taken a decidedly more open-minded
position on marijuana use than the Conservatives.

It is no accident that Vancouver's civic government, Vision Vancouver
- - a party far more aligned with the world view of Mr. Trudeau than
that of Stephen Harper - has put councillor Kerry Jang out front on
the dispensary issue. Mr. Jang has solid connections among the city's
Chinese population and has been deeply involved in educating that
community on the dispensary issue. I'm assured the initial response to
the initiative has been good.

That, at least, is the politics of the situation.

The reality is that the city had to do something. Police were growing
increasingly concerned that the Hell's Angels were preparing to get
into the medicinal marijuana dispensary business in a big way, which
is why, under the proposed regulations, anyone even remotely involved
in a storefront operation will have to undergo extensive police
background checks. Something tells me the Hells Angels have ways of
getting around this, but we'll see.

Of course, Ms. Ambrose and her colleagues could order the shutdown of
every operation in existence.

Here, I'm imagining a prohibition-era-style raid by gun-toting RCMP
officers who, instead of poking holes in barrels of illegal booze,
light bags of illicit pot on fire. Talk about a sure way to attract a
crowd in Vancouver.

Yet, somehow, I don't see this occurring. More likely, given the world
in which we live, this whole matter will end up in court. Either
Ottawa will seek an injunction to close these places down, or the
establishments themselves will go to court attempting to exploit the
imprecise language the city and others say exists in this whole area.

One might think legalizing and regulating the sale of marijuana would
solve this entire problem. That's not necessarily the case. When I was
down in Washington State recently to see how legalization was working
there, officials were wrestling with a similar problem to the one
Vancouver is experiencing: the absolute explosion in the number of
medical cannabis outlets.

The pot being sold by the medical dispensaries is about a third of the
cost of pot sold at state-regulated outlets. The medical dispensaries
have effectively become the new black market, although it sounds like
legislative changes are afoot to put the two systems on a more equal
setting.

Back here, we can only sit and watch as a frustrated federal
government tries to deal with the problem child known as Vancouver,
which has been defiantly smoking pot in the open for years. Selling it
in stores has somehow always seemed inevitable.
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MAP posted-by: Matt