Pubdate: Thu, 09 Mar 2017
Source: Kamloops This Week (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Kamloops This Week
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1271
Author: Cam Fortems

MARIJUANA MISSIONARY SET TO SPEAK TONIGHT

A cannabis evangelist who pioneered one of Canada's earliest
dispensaries is not sitting back waiting for the Trudeau government to
provide Canadians with legal marijuana.

"I'll believe it when I see it," said Dana Larsen, who operates a
dispensary in Vancouver, served as editor of Cannabis Canada for a
decade and is now on a lecture circuit where he gives away 100
marijuana seeds to every guest.

He will also mail seeds to those who cannot make it to a
lecture.

That tour comes to Kamloops Thursday, March 9, at 7 p.m. at the
Doubletree by Hilton Hotel at St. Paul Street and Third Avenue downtown.

"Right now they're saying [legalization] is going to be a couple
years," Larsen said of Ottawa's plans for marijuana. "I'm not going to
sit idly by."

The federal Liberal government is expected to introduce legislation
this spring to legalize sale of recreational and prescription marijuana.

But Larsen estimates it will take until at least the fall before it
becomes law. Then the provinces will have to decide their own
regulations.

That will kick legalization down the road to 2019, he said, just in
time for another federal election.

"What happens if Trudeau loses the election before it's legalized?"
Larsen asked.

He said his goal is to allow unlimited personal growing, what he
acknowledges is a libertarian ideal not likely to be embraced by
government any time soon.

Among topics Larsen will discuss tonight is advice on opening a
marijuana dispensary.

Entrepreneurs in Kamloops, emboldened by lack of enforcement by the
city or RCMP, have set up at least six clinics, most of them in the
last year.

Those clinics are nominally required to provide for medical use, with
buyers needing to produce a doctor's note or get marijuana through a
nurse provided by the clinic, for example.

More recently, however, shops have stripped any pretence to requiring
medical proof.

Last summer, the Vancouver Dispensary Society, where Larsen is a
director, dropped any medical requirements and will sell pot to any
adult with ID. Larsen said that laissez faire attitude is now common
in the dispensary industry.

He predicts the dispensaries and producers who sell to them operating
under the former rules won't be going anywhere once legalization comes
to pass.

The federal Liberals are expected to pass laws that would restrict
production to licensed producers, such as Canopy Growth Corp. or
Organigram - both large publicly traded companies with multi-million
dollars in funding behind them.

Larsen believes the current system will sell alongside the officially
sanctioned one as court battles sort it out over a number of years.

"I don't want to carry cannabis for Tweed (subsidiary of Canopy
Growth)," he said. "I don't believe in those companies or their system."
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MAP posted-by: Matt