Pubdate: Sat, 04 Jul 2015
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Jack Knox
Page: A3

ACTIVIST TRYING TO FORCE POLICE TO WEED OUT VICTORIA POT SHOPS

Grey area? There's no grey area when it comes to medical marijuana 
dispensaries, says Pamela McColl.

"The law is not grey," she says, on the phone from Salt Spring 
Island. "The law is black and white."

So McColl, who speaks for a group called Smart Approaches to 
Marijuana Canada, can't understand why the storefronts are being 
allowed to proliferate in Victoria and Vancouver. In fact, she has 
gone to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner in an attempt 
to force a crackdown in both cities.

"The reason Victoria has a dozen-plus illegal medical-marijuana 
dispensaries is because the police have not done their job," she 
states in a document filed last week.

"They have stated that it has not been a priority to enforce the 
Criminal Code and force the closure of the pot stores. ... By not 
upholding the laws of Canada, the Victoria Police Department have 
allowed these operations to flourish, profit from crime, and pose a 
threat to public safety."

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has diverted McColl's 
complaints to the Victoria/Esquimalt and Vancouver police boards. The 
former body will get its first look at the grievance at its meeting 
this month. The Vancouver board will hear it Sept. 17.

But local politicians say the situation isn't as straightforward as 
McColl claims. The pot shops - about a dozen in Victoria and 100 in 
Vancouver - have sprouted in the landscape left by court rulings that 
deemed Health Canada's medical-marijuana rules to be too restrictive.

Stamping out storefronts isn't that easy, they say, so Victoria 
council has signalled its intention to follow Vancouver's lead and 
regulate them instead. Vancouver will charge a $30,000 licensing fee 
($1,000 for non-profit compassion clubs) and keep dispensaries away 
from schools, community centres and each other.

Not nearly good enough, McColl maintains. There's still way too much 
ignorance about the drug to treat it that lightly. "I don't think we 
should legalize marijuana as long as 40 per cent of women think it's 
OK to use while pregnant, which it's not," she says.

Municipal licensing would still result in untaxed suppliers, some 
tied to organized crime, selling an untested, potentially 
contaminated product to dispensaries that promise unsubstantiated 
benefits to vulnerable sick people, McColl says (though she also says 
the truly ailing make up only a tiny fraction of buyers). If there is 
a medical benefit to marijuana, it should be prescribed by medical 
professionals through conventional pharmacies, like any other drug. 
As it is, the system is wide open to "quackery." Municipalities 
shouldn't be in this game.

To which Mayor Lisa Helps, the one leading Victoria's regulation 
efforts, says ... she concurs.

"I completely and 100 per cent agree with her," Helps says. "No 
municipality in the country should be licensing medical substances."

The problem, she says, is the federal and provincial authorities who 
should be driving this bus have stepped away from the wheel, leaving 
the municipalities scrambling into the seat. If activists want to 
agitate for change, senior government should be the target.

As for the law, Helps agrees that it's clear: Marijuana is still 
illegal. It can be tough to lay a charge that results in a dispensary 
closing its doors, though. And, frankly, the police have nastier 
drugs and nastier crimes to worry about.

Deputy Chief Steve Ing of the Victoria police acknowledges as much: 
"We prioritize all of our enforcement based on the public interest." 
At the top of the list are crimes of violence, ones where there's an 
imminent threat, ones where weapons are involved. ... But yes, he 
says, VicPD recognizes the federal marijuana law exists, and is 
working with its other partners, including prosecutors.

McColl wants more decisive action. RCMP shut down Parksville's 
dispensary in April, she notes, and Nanaimo has balked at following 
Vancouver and Victoria's approach. Is Ottawa, having licensed 
commercial outfits like Nanaimo's Tilray to grow medical marijuana, 
really going to let them be undercut by unlicensed dispensaries? 
"Could Tilray sue the feds for not upholding the law? This is really goofy."

Yes, it is, just as it's goofy that Ottawa is leaving municipalities 
to fix the problem with what Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, who 
co-chairs the police board, describes as the few tools in their toolkit.

On the phone from Vancouver on Friday, she has this to say: "I cannot 
believe the number of shops that have opened up here."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom