Pubdate: Fri, 16 Feb 2018
Source: Nelson Star (CN BC)
Copyright: 2018 Black Press
Contact:  http://www.bclocalnews.com/kootenay_rockies/nelsonstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4866
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v18/n050/a07.html
Author: Philip McMillan

CANNABIS COMPASSION CLUB CONFIDENT OF LEGAL WIN AGAINST THE CITY

Re: "Cannabis: City asks for public feedback" in the Feb. 7 issue of the 
Nelson Star.

I want to voice my disappointment with this article.

We don't have a municipal business licence, but the Nelson Cannabis
Compassion Club isn't a for-profit business. Since March, 2000 we have
been licensed by the province as a non-profit organization,
incorporated under the Societies Act. The licensing and regulating of
which is the jurisdiction of the province.

Also in the Feb. 7th 2018 issue Pam Mierau says, "Our assumption is
they (medical dispensaries) will be treated like anybody else who is
looking to set up a retail store here, and they'll have to go through
the same process , and they won't have any advantage over anyone
else." "But we're not sure." Well, she shouldn't be sure as there is a
major difference between a recreational user of cannabis and a medical
user. It's called the Chart of Rights and Freedoms. Recreational users
don't have charter protections and medical users do. Even the
provincial government realizes this. If you look at their
announcements around the retail sales of recreational cannabis they
use the same term "non-medicinal cannabis" over and over again.

In the same issue, Pam says that city staff have issued fines and that
council may eventually consider an injunction. What she didn't mention
is that we have disputed those fines and shown how their current bylaw
isn't enforceable against the NCCC. As to the threat of an injunction,
we will win. If city staff want to waste tens of thousands of Nelson
taxpayer dollars fighting a bunch of sick and dying people in court,
all the power to them. I'm easy to find. Just know, that when I win
they will have opened the city to liability law suits from all of the
other dispensaries.

Philip McMillan, (Facilities director of NCCC) Nelson
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MAP posted-by: Matt