Pubdate: Sat, 28 May 2016
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Page: A2
Copyright: 2016 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Rosie DiManno

POT RAIDS AREN'T POLITICAL, JUST A MATTER OF LAW

Marijuana dispensaries had become the new dollar stores.

Just as ubiquitous around the city, just as slapdash in their 
inventory, just as fill-your-cart accessible to anybody with a few 
bucks in their pocket. And not necessarily a medical prescription to go with.

That may be the nirvana normal as envisioned by pot activists but 
it's surely not what the federal government had in mind when Health 
Minister Jane Philpott announced Canada would legalize recreational 
cannabis within a year. Though we don't actually know what the 
Liberals are contemplating or how they will roll out commercial 
availability, except I bet it will be a bureaucratic monster.

Frankly, the pop-up dispensaries - entrepreneurs getting a 
freewheeling jump on the presumed dope marketplace, their numbers 
doubled since March - remind me of the sex parlours galore that 
infested Toronto in the late '70s, brought to heel only after the 
murder of a 12-year-old shoeshine boy.

Many yesterdays ago, that was. But for a time, the city was 
unrecognizable, a rub-a-dub Pottersville where the squish joints 
actually operated as bawdy houses, prostitution on the in/out hoof.

Obviously I'm not saying that marijuana profiteers are akin to pimps. 
But they're not virtuous humanitarians providing a public service 
either. They are, as witnessed by the police chief's chaotic press 
conference Friday, a loudmouthed, belligerent and bullying bunch who 
reject the apparently quaint notion that criminal laws should apply 
to them. And they've drawn vigour from the tacitly lawless 
environment that has been created by Ottawa's pre-decriminalization stasis.

As federal legislation stands, there is no such thing as a legal 
marijuana dispensary. There are only a few dozen government-licensed 
distributors permitted to deliver - by mail order, specifically - 
cannabis to approved medical patients. (A federal court order in 
February struck down the prohibition on individuals growing their own 
medical pot for personal use.)

The system in place is clumsy and inconvenient. It also created an 
oligopoly. On the positive side, it provided a means for quality 
control for medical patients. Establishing a content baseline for 
THC, among other components, is a reasonable requirement, whether for 
medical pot or the legal recreational pot of the future.

Chief Mark Saunders stressed that issue in justifying the impetus 
behind Project Claudia, Thursday's "low-energy" sweep of clearly 
illegal dispensaries around Toronto.

"Project Claudia is not an attack on lawful production, distribution 
or purchasing of marijuana for medical purposes." Pointing to the 
array of products that had been seized from 43 locations raided - 279 
kilograms of dried marijuana, 24 kilos of hash, 30 kilos of cannabis 
resin, 27 kilos of marijuana and THC pills in oil and capsule form, 
and a massive amount of "edibles," the 142 kilograms of cookies, 129 
kilos of candies, soda and jams and lollipops - Saunders added: 
"There is no quality control on these products and, as you can see, 
they're marketed in a way to disguise the unknown and unregulated 
amount of THC in the products . . ."

Half of the dispensaries were situated within 300 metres of a school. 
Even in liberal-minded jurisdictions such as Vancouver, bylaws forbid 
dispensaries that operate under local bylaws - and all such bylaws 
would ultimately be overtaken by what the feds devise in their 
decriminalization/legalization objective - from situating in 
proximity to schools, recreational centres and other places where 
easily influenced youth gather.

"This is not about the charges, this is about public safety, that's 
what my concern is," said Saunders, as he was repeatedly interrupted 
by hecklers.

They want what they want. How they want. Where they want.

They don't give a rat's ass about the teenage kids you, as parents or 
guardians, are trying to steer clear of recreational drugs because 
they do, in fact, affect hugely on learning, on truancy, on peer 
pressure that shunts young lives off the rails. That is not an 
exaggeration. If you don't have kids, you have no idea about the 
daily challenges of child rearing in a society bombarded by 
destructive messages and seductive enticements.

Residents have been appalled by the encroachment of "dispensaries" in 
their neighbourhoods. Their complaints triggered Project Claudia. 
"These complaints were substantive in nature," said Steve Watts, 
acting inspector with the Toronto drug squad. "Petitions and in 
excess of 50 and 70 people, just to give you an idea of the kind of 
complaints that were coming forward in relation to these unlawful 
storefront dispensaries."

Twenty-two grams of powder cocaine seized at one location.

But the evangelists of pot will countenance no restraints, no 
moderation restrictions. Oh, they've got a snootful of chutzpah now. 
Not so mild-mannered and hazy of mood either. In-your-face defiant. 
They wilfully ignored the warnings issued on May 18 that raids were 
imminent. Letters sent by the city's licensing and standards 
department to all dispensary operators, explaining violations of 
zoning bylaws that could, would, result in charges.

Blow it out your wazoo was the response. I suspect they relished it, 
this moment of their contrived victimhood - St. Maryjane Among the 
Martyrs - seizing the platform of a press conference with legions of 
media present.

"This is worse than anything we saw under the Harper government!" 
harangued Jodie Emery, longtime pot activist and married to Mark 
Emery, Canada's so-called Prince of Pot. "I think Canadians should 
immediately call Justin Trudeau, John Tory and Bill Blair and ask why 
we're seeing more people being harmed under their so-called 
legalization than we ever saw under Stephen Harper's anti-marijuana 
policies. This is about protecting the corporate profits of 
stock-market businesses who have sent police to arrest people to 
protect their own financial interest. That is sick and disgusting and 
despicable. Shame on the Toronto Police Service and shame on the 
Toronto city government for harming peaceful people."

Pooh to 50 or so complainants, she insisted, compared to "50,000 sick 
people last night who were stressed and sick and their doctors say, 
no, I won't give you medical marijuana.

"These dispensaries do no harm. The police are the biggest gang of 
guns that went and shut down peaceful businesses."

Spare me. If there's a genuine scam afoot, it's the number of 
individuals who've secured legal marijuana prescriptions for bogus 
medical conditions. The last Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring 
Survey published by Health Canada (in 2011) pegged the estimated 
number of medical marijuana users at 420,000. But they will insist on 
conflating the medical users with the recreational users, clinging to 
coattails of legality.

None of Thursday's raids were targeted at disrupting legal marijuana 
distributors or consumers with a medical prescription.

"In no way, shape or form did we look at or consider arresting people 
for possession," Saunders said. "This is strictly for those people 
that are trafficking in narcotics."

Until Ottawa legalizes pot, that's what you are, folks - traffickers, 
no different from the gangbanger peddling crack in the park. Chasing 
the money. Blow that out your self-righteous bong.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom