Questions about how proposed bylaw amendments targeting e-cigarettes will impact marijuana users delayed a Vancouver City Council vote on the topic - with politicians still debating at press time Wednesday night.

In Wednesday's planning, transportation and environment meeting, members of council heard from the public on recommended bylaw amendments that would prohibit smoking or "vapourizing" e-cigarettes in places where smoking tobacco cigarettes is disallowed, as well as prohibiting sale to minors, and display and advertising.

Dana Larsen, marijuana advocate and director of SensibleBC, spoke at the meeting, saying the bylaw amendments as they are currently worded inadvertently apply to medical marijuana as well, thus would impact "a patient who's walking down the street and feel they might be having an epileptic seizure."

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For the fourth time in five years, the Union of B. C. Municipalities has been asked to petition Health Canada to reveal the location of existing medical marijuana growing licences across the province.

The resolution, endorsed by the UBCM delegates Wednesday, drew animated debate, with big cities - led by Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman - arguing it was a matter of safety, and some smaller towns saying the issue should remain private.

Banman argued municipalities have a right to know where medical pot is being grown, saying that by not knowing the locations of the estimated 829 licences in Abbotsford or the 900 in nearby Mission has posed problems for city, police and fire officials. This information would be used to ensure electrical and building codes are up to scratch and help in the investigation of issues related to home invasions, fires and toxic mould.

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So much work and money have been put into two separate epic campaigns, it's hard not to think they will both eventually be successful.

On one hand, a popular movement to relax prohibitive laws is chipping away at restrictions on the use of one relatively benign substance.

On the other, monumental lawsuits and education campaigns have penalized the producers and shamed the users of a toxic product.

Some time in the next several years, both movements will arrive at their destinations. Marijuana and tobacco will change places.

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90-90-90 plan to end epidemic. Montaner disappointed in Harper for not presenting plan

Vancouver doctor and world-renowned AIDS researcher Dr. Julio Montaner sat in the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday as the UN endorsed an ambitious plan to end the global AIDS epidemic by 2030.

Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was the chief architect of the so-called 90-90-90 strategy, which was presented to the UN.

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Pot subject to federal tax, judge rules

Sales of medical marijuana are subject to federal sales tax even when they fall into a largely unregulated grey area, a judge has just ruled in a case that underscores the legal haziness around pot in Canada.

B.C.'s Gerry Hedges earned as much as $114,000 a year selling a strain of pot he named Po-Chi - after his dog - to a Vancouver "compassion club" for medical-marijuana users. Though the police once raided his operation on B.C.'s Gabriola island and the Harper government has generally discouraged marijuana use, the federal tax department insisted he charge GST on the shipments.

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It was big-city safety versus small-town privacy in a vote on whether the Union of B.C. Municipalities should petition Health Canada to disclose the locations of existing medical marijuana growing licences across the province.

In the end, the larger communities - led by Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman - won after delegates voted in favour of his city's resolution. Although the resolution has come to the UBCM four times in five years, nothing has been done.

But Banman argued municipalities have a right to know where the medical pot is being grown, saying that not knowing the locations for the estimated 829 licences in Abbotsford or the 900 in nearby Mission has posed problems.

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In light of recent study results, the risks outweigh the benefits

Talks regarding the decriminalization of marijuana have been around for many years, but only became mainstream in 2000 with the founding of the Marijuana Party of Canada. For the majority of that time, many believed that a change in the drug's status was a mere pipe dream suited to a fringe group that would never hold any power, real or imagined, in this country.

That belief was shattered when Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau announced he plans to legalize marijuana if he becomes Prime Minister next year. With that in mind, the question has again arisen: Should marijuana be legalized?

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Nanaimo residents living near Wisteria Lane showed city staff and local politicians the progress that has been done to deter drug addicts and prostitutes from using the alleyway as a safe haven.

The alley, which was given its name by the local homeowners, runs immediately west of the 100-block of Nicol Street behind a row of businesses and homes.

After collecting more than 70 dirty needles and watching drug deals on a near daily basis, frustrated residents got together in July to find a solution to the growing problem.

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In the 1980s and '90s, a lucrative and well-organized drug-smuggling network spanning Mexico, the U.S. and Canada had northern beachheads in a handful of small farming towns in southwestern Ontario and southern Manitoba. These communities were also home to tens of thousands of Old Colony Mennonites, a deeply conservative branches of one of Christianity's most traditional sects - similar to other pacifist and agrarian-based societies like the Amish or Hutterites. Ironic then, that it turned out they were the drug smugglers.

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Imagine a holistic health-care program that could reduce death rates, almost eradicate two major complicating diseases, improve quality and quantity of life and be more cost-effective than many cancer treatments or cholesterol-lowering drugs.

A health economist's dream come true? A political vote-winner? Something our health care administrators should be falling over themselves in a rush to implement? An obvious yes to all three. Except for intravenous drug users in Victoria. They don't qualify for proven and humane therapy.

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There's a famous experiment in the annals of learning. It involves a jar, a banana and a monkey. I know it sounds very similar to jokes that start, "There was a priest, a rabbi and a minister," but that's where the similarity ends.

The experiment goes like this. The banana is put inside the jar and the jar is put inside a room. So is the monkey. Put inside the room, that is, not inside the jar. It's not that big a jar. The monkey being a monkey and the banana being a banana, it doesn't take long for the monkey to notice the banana and decide he/she would really like to eat it. This is where it gets good.

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On the morning of September 12, Canada Post's tracking system showed Dana Larsen's bag of purple kush was on its way to Victoria.

Yesterday (September 11), one of Canada's lead advocates for marijuana reform floated a novel idea for ending B.C.'s teachers strike.

"I sent the Premier some cannabis buds for two reasons," Dana Larsen said quoted in a news release. "First, I thought if she could get together with Peter Fassbender, Jim Iker and their negotiating teams to share a joint, it would help break down some barriers and give the BCTF negotiations a fresh start.

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Veteran activist Sid Chow Tan believes Vancouver residents should all do their part to resist the wrongheaded "war on drugs".

Tan, who is running for city council with COPE in the November election, posted an interesting proposal in the comment section of Travis Lupick's September 10 article, "FOI request reveals Vancouver city hall perplexed by medicinal marijuana".

Here's what Tan wrote:

I propose all residents of Vancouver do their duty in the so-called war on drugs and grow eight marijuana plants in their home. Growers could enjoy the harvest in personal use, gifts to family and friends or contributions to worthwhile causes. The Compassionate Club comes to mind.

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Health Canada's Privacy Policy on Medical Marijuana Grow-Ops Puts Homebuyers and Residents at Risk, Says Abbotsford Council.

Health Canada does not provide addresses of licensed production sites, so the city has had multiple instances of homebuyers unknowingly purchasing former grow-op locations - leaving them with costly repair bills to fix tampered electrical wires and mould issues, said Coun. Henry Braun.

"It's a hardship," said Braun. "Somebody buys a house and they basically have to gut the inside of it. You're talking $50,000 and for some people, they can't do it. And yet they own the house."

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Could ending the months-long B.C. teachers' strike be as simple as Christy Clark, Peter Fassbender, and Jim Iker hot boxing it in the premier's minivan?

Marijuana activist Dana Larsen said today (September 11) that he has sent the premier some weed in the mail.

"I sent the Premier some cannabis buds for two reasons," Larsen said in a news release. "First, I thought if she could get together with Peter Fassbender, Jim Iker and their negotiating teams to share a joint, it would help break down some barriers and give the BCTF negotiations a fresh start.

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THERE'S CONFUSION AT 12th and Cambie about how Vancouver should regulate its burgeoning market for medicinal marijuana, according to documents released in response to a Straight freedom of information request.

But one councillor appears to have taken a clear stance on cannabis. That's Vision Vancouver's Kerry Jang, who in March 2014 received a letter of gratitude for letting his position be known.

"As a non user I would like to personally thank you for your commitment to these patients and their right to their medicine," one citizen wrote. "Thank you for having a set of balls counsellor, they are much needed and appreciated." (The author's name is redacted in accordance with privacy laws.)

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Police actions questioned in arrest of former Surrey educator on charges of drug trafficking

A lawyer for a former Surrey substitute teacher arrested on drug trafficking charges near a Vancouver elementary school is hoping to beat the charges on a number of constitutional challenges.

Eugenio Alfonso Bahamonde, who has pleaded not guilty to trafficking and possession of drugs for the purposes of trafficking, was arrested in his BMW X5 SUV with two baggies of marijuana, equalling 45.5 grams in total, and $1,440 in various bills rolled up in a bundle.

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Vancouver pot activist Dana Larsen mailed Christy Clark a half-ounce of high-grade pot on Thursday to remind B.C.'s premier of the potential tax windfall of legalizing the drug and to also offer an alternative solution to ending the ongoing labour dispute with the province's striking teachers.

Larsen, who once launched a failed citizens' campaign to decriminalize pot possession in B.C. with a referendum, said legalization could haul in an estimated $200 million a year in taxes - money, he said, that could be used to pay for schools, teachers, hospitals, libraries and community centres.

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Sensible BC wants council candidates who support cause

The local faction of Sensible BC, a group advocating for an end to marijuana prohibition, is gearing up to get involved both in the municipal election in November and the federal election next year.

"The strategy for the next while is to get involved in the municipal election," said retired Nelson teacher and local Sensible BC organizer Herb Couch. "We want to try and make sure we've got council members and mayors who are supportive of moving away from prohibition and working towards a legal, regulated market."

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DOWN THE HALL from the supervised injection room at Insite, there's a mostly unused space that years ago was haphazardly filled with boxes.

Unique for a storage space, it's outfitted to accommodate heavy air-handling units powerful enough to create negative room pressure.

Over coffee earlier this summer, Portland Hotel Society (PHS) cofounder and former executive director Mark Townsend explained that Insite was originally planned to provide services to a variety of drug users. The room stuffed with boxes was designed as a place where people addicted to crack cocaine could smoke the drug in conditions that minimize risks of fatal overdose and infection, he said.

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