Pubdate: Thu, 03 Dec 2015
Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015, BC Newspaper Group
Contact:  http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/948

POT SHOPS HAD TO BE CLOSED

The Nanaimo RCMP decided that where there's pot smoke, there's fire,
and they snuffed it out.

Police raided local medical marijuana dispensaries on Tuesday and it
was something that needed to be done. We agree with a lot of the
arguments to legalize or decriminalize marijuana, but we recognize
that those sorts of laws aren't in place yet. When we disagree with
the laws of the land, we can protest them, but Nanaimo's dispensaries
were basically flouting the law and going far beyond a little bit of
civil disobedience.

It took police many months to carry out the drug busts. That might
simply mean that the investigation process was complicated, but maybe
it suggests that enforcement was a difficult decision. If that's the
case, we understand why - not all forms of rule-breaking are alike,
and some offences are more serious than others.

We do think the dispensaries are pretty harmless. The RCMP indicated
that public safety was one of the reasons it warned pot shops to
close, and that's a tenuous argument. We question, in most cases,
marijuana's medicinal properties, but it's less harmful than a lot of
things we put in our bodies.

The problem is that since it's illegal to start with, it isn't subject
to the same supplemental regulations like food and drug inspections,
for instance. We don't know from where the product was sourced or how
it got from the grow-op to the pot shop.

Canada's new attorney general has been given a mandate to work with
provinces and territories on a process leading to the legalization of
marijuana. With legalization will come regulation, taxation and
education. Medical marijuana dispensaries weren't providing those
things - they were dealing drugs.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt