Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jun 2015
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Allen Garr
Referenced: Supreme Court Judgment (R. v. Smith): 
http://mapinc.org/url/d2dzMbjW

MISSED OPPORTUNITY CREATED POT CONFUSION

Thursday's Supreme Court of Canada decision supporting the sale and 
use of edible marijuana products will not change the City of 
Vancouver's declared intention to have them banned for sale.

This according to city manager Penny Ballem despite the fact that the 
court decision takes effect immediately.

It just adds to the confusion around marijuana use spawned by Stephen 
Harper's ideologically driven government in Ottawa. And it reinforces 
the belief that none of this would be taking place had Pierre 
Trudeau's Liberal government of the day almost five decades ago taken 
the advice of its own Le Dain Commission on the Non-medical Use of 
Drugs and decriminalized the use of pot.

This week the court ruled that the federal government's restriction 
on patients prescribed medical marijuana to only smoking dried leaves 
is an infringement on their charter rights regarding the liberty of 
the person. The court agreed with a B.C. court ruling that smoking is 
less effective and can be harmful. So patients should be allowed to 
purchase and consume the drug in its many and varied edible forms as well.

(This all revolved around a 2009 case involving Victoria resident 
Owen Smith, who was busted for trafficking when he was found to be 
cooking up batches of goodies containing pot for a local compassion club.)

This decision comes just as the City of Vancouver is in the midst of 
its public hearing regarding its proposed regulations covering the 
now more than 90 outlets selling pot for what they claim are 
medicinal purposes only.

That explosion in the number of shops in this city, as you may know, 
came when Ottawa changed the regulations a couple of years ago about 
who could grow pot and how people could buy pot legally.

 From folks growing their own or having people nearby with licences 
grow it for them, the feds changed the rules so that only large-scale 
licensed growers could produce pot and the only way a person could 
obtain it, after a doctor filled out a form, was through the mail. 
And they could only buy and use pot as dried leaves that were to be smoked.

While the feds, most vocally in the person of Health Minister Rona 
Ambrose, continue to bellow that all those pot shops are illegal, the 
city, in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of proliferating 
retail outlets, began the process of setting up regulations around 
those businesses.

The city claims that while it has no jurisdiction over the drug 
itself, it can regulate businesses, including location and who can be served.

So for all intents and purposes selling pot and using it in Vancouver 
is not going to get anyone charged under the Criminal Code.

The Vancouver cops won't bust the shops if they aren't serving 
adolescents or causing a disturbance in the neighborhood. The city 
has no interest in who is entering the shops to buy pot so long as 
they are 19 years of age or older. They could care less whether the 
person has a doctor's prescription or got a note out of their cereal box.

The one apparent contradiction is the city's proposal to ban the sale 
of edible marijuana products. That is undeniably regulating the drug 
over which the city says it has no authority.

Both Vancouver Coastal Health chief medical officer Patricia Daly and 
Ballem explained at council Wednesday that edibles are not regulated 
as to content by Heath Canada, so purchasers put themselves at risk, 
and besides, many of the products are attractive to kids in the form 
or candies and cookies.

The "compromise," as Daly referred to it, is to all allow the sale of 
cannabis oil. People can purchase this and cook up their own edible 
products at home.

That aside, the Supreme Court ruling provides further evidence that 
folks will continue to flout the law.

Kirk Tousaw, the lawyer who handled the case of Owen Smith all the 
way to the Supreme Court, notes: "The primary unresolved issue is who 
can supply patients with these medicines. The law today does not 
allow anyone to do so."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom