Pubdate: Tue, 21 Jul 2015
Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015, BC Newspaper Group
Contact:  http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/948
Author: Tamara Cunningham

LEADERSHIP NEEDED ON POT DISPENSARY ISSUE

A labelled and bagged chocolate brownie that rested between me and a 
'budtender' last week represents everything wrong with B.C.'s budding 
marijuana dispensaries.

It was an offering by a dispensary employee, made unsolicited to a 
non-registered, non-prescription-holding reporter. That's not 
supposed to happen and it raises the question of how 'Wild West' the 
frontier of medical marijuana has become.

There's growth in medical marijuana dispensaries and Nanaimo isn't 
immune, with pot shops cropping up across the city.

It's unknown exactly how many dispensaries exist today, with numbers 
ranging from five to nine, but they're here and there should be 
debate about how to address them.

Health Canada only authorizes six licensed producers in B.C. to sell 
medical marijuana to registered, medically prescribed patients and it 
can't be from storefronts, but Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay said the 
federal government isn't providing resources to enforce its rules.

According to McKay, the federal government has made it clear the 
operations aren't legal, but there's little the city can do about it 
because in his opinion, resources aren't coming from the federal 
government to uphold its law and view on dispensaries.

He's prepared to make an emergency motion to the Union of B.C. 
Municipalities, urging the federal government to contribute resources 
or expedite a Supreme Court challenge to federal rules governing 
medical marijuana. McKay expects there will be more dispensaries, 
with nobody stopping them, and isn't open to seeing the city license 
the businesses, which he says would add legitimacy to them.

Currently the City of Nanaimo does not issue business licences to 
dispensaries because it sees them as illegal, but neither does it 
ticket offenders.

The municipality and the police both have concerns about 
dispensaries. Randy Churchill, the city's manager of bylaw services, 
doesn't want to see marijuana produced in a way that jeopardizes the 
safety of communities and neighbourhoods. The Nanaimo RCMP have 
concerns about the origin of marijuana sold in dispensaries and what 
testing is done, but enforcing the law around dispensaries means time 
and resources spent on investigations and it depends on policing 
priorities that are evaluated daily.

"I have never said that they have a free ride or we aren't going to 
pursue action against dispensaries,"said Nanaimo RCMP Supt. Mark 
Fisher. "It's just, as I said, a matter of what evidence we gather and when."

The problem is these dispensaries are being allowed to continue 
without government standards, structures or regulations. No matter 
what public opinion might be when it comes to the legalization of 
marijuana, or the legitimacy of people's need for the drug, public 
safety needs to come first.

If dispensary doors remain open in Nanaimo, then there needs to be 
rules, quality controls and information about where their product is 
being produced. I've talked to dispensaries that require doctor's 
notes and another that only requires people to self declare a serious 
medical condition. I saw a sign offering free joints to people who 
donate to the food bank, and heard about bunk weed that's unable to 
be sold, rolled and used in a smoke session. That doesn't speak to a 
'pharmacy' environment and if a drug is being distributed because of 
a lack of action by authorities, then somewhere and at some level 
leadership needs to be taken to ensure there's no more grey area 
clouding this issue. It's either allowed and regulated, or banned and 
enforced but this growing business can't be allowed to exist in limbo 
where it continues to operate in this city unchecked.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom