The City of Vancouver has approved a two-tier licensing system to curb the explosion of illegal medical marijuana dispensaries, defying warnings from the federal government by becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to regulate storefront pot sales. Councillors voted on Wednesday to introduce a new business licensing system for compassion clubs and dispensaries, whose numbers have ballooned to about 100 across the city, up from a handful just several years ago. The vote followed extensive public hearings, in which most speakers generally supported regulation, and stern letters from federal cabinet ministers urging council to abandon its plan. The provincial Health Minister and the head of the local health authority have voiced their support for the rules, and Victoria's mayor says her staff are already studying Vancouver's new bylaw and will report back to council in September about imposing similar regulations on the 19 dispensaries in that city. [continues 633 words]
Cafes with high-tech smoking devices make getting high a social occasion, but Vancouver says they are illegal and plans to ban them under forthcoming dispensary regulations, Mike Hager reports Neil Blake does a lap of the bar, bumping fists with friends and cracking jokes, before sidling up to a vaporizer for a "dab" of wax so concentrated with pot's psychoactive ingredient that he likens it to smoking a whole joint in one breath. The affable 37-year-old says he started dabbing to ease pain from his multiple sclerosis that a cocktail of steroids and pharmaceutical drugs cannot always alleviate. The former software engineer has been coming to this location in Vancouver's West End every day since the end of April, when his regular vapour lounge in Chinatown run by the Eden dispensary chain was damaged by a fire at a neighbouring restaurant. [continues 1110 words]
A year ago, Brina Levitt became a believer in the power of medical marijuana after she crashed her bike on one of the vestigial railroad tracks that line the streets of Vancouver's historic Granville Island. The 36-year-old Vancouver woman says she was left with debilitating back pain and insomnia that over-the-counter pain medication and sleeping pills could not fix. She had smoked marijuana only a few times in her life, but her partner suggested it might help the pain. She says smoking made her cough too much, which irritated her back, but she found relief from her sciatica and sleeplessness when she ate pot cookies. [continues 879 words]
More than 160 speakers, mostly marijuana advocates, crowded into Vancouver's City Hall on Wednesday night to weigh the city's plan to become the first in Canada to attempt to regulate medical pot dispensaries, which have exploded into a booming, but legally questionable, industry. Brina Levitt, owner Green Penguin Delights, a company that makes edible marijuana, came to ask that dispensaries be allowed to continue to sell more than just dried marijuana. City staff are recommending that "edibles" be outlawed under the new rules because they are unregulated and marijuana cookies and candies appeal to children. [continues 724 words]
UBC doctor to have 'all the freedom in the world' to look into possible therapeutic benefits of cannabis A University of British Columbia researcher who recently found that daily pot use might help fight HIV/AIDS is getting a $1-million grant from a commercial cannabis grower, which could lead to more clinical evidence for doctors skeptical of a drug still outlawed in Canada. National Green BioMed, a Richmond-based company partly owned by former Liberal MP Herb Dhaliwal, has already provided $200,000. It has committed to paying the full million dollars over five years, even if it fails to secure a licence from Health Canada to grow marijuana at its Fraser Valley facility. [continues 552 words]
A former soldier organizing hundreds of fellow PTSD-suffering veterans in Atlantic Canada to take advantage of federally funded marijuana prescriptions says he sees no problem with producers paying groups representing patients in an industry with scant regulation on sales. Afghanistan veteran Fabian Henry has spoken on behalf of his group, Marijuana for Trauma, to a number of licensed producers about sharing a cut of sales or receiving patient referral fees, which he says will help build a holistic centre for his group's roughly 500 members. [continues 672 words]
Head of B.C.'s medical association says Ottawa is failing physicians by not setting rules for discussing medical marijuana with patients The head of B.C.'s medical association says the federal government is failing Canada's doctors by not providing meaningful guidelines on how to talk to their patients about medical marijuana prescriptions in the absence of reliable clinical studies. Bill Cavers says doctors across Canada are being bombarded with information on medical marijuana by the same companies producing the drug, a clear conflict of interest. Health Canada, which does not endorse medical marijuana's use, should stop the practice, said Dr. Cavers, who wants an independent process to better educate medical professionals about the benefits and dangers of the drug. [continues 638 words]
One of Canada's largest licensed medical marijuana producers says it has repeatedly been hit up by specialized clinics asking for money in exchange for referring patients to them - a practice that underscores the lack of clear rules governing the relationship between consumers, their doctors and growers in the nascent industry. While many of the provincial colleges that regulate doctors forbid physicians to charge patients or growers directly for marijuana prescriptions, it is less clear whether those restrictions apply to clinics that employ doctors. The federal regulatory regime implemented a year ago has sprouted a cottage industry of cannabis clinics for patients whose own doctors may be uncomfortable prescribing medical cannabis. (Pot dispensaries that have exploded in Vancouver and are popping up around the country operate illegally and are unregulated.) [continues 784 words]
Many people strolling bohemian Commercial Drive simply smirked as they saw the dispensary's sidewalk sandwich board advertising its "grand reopening" with the offer of a free joint or pot cookie. Some climbed the stairs, passed the prominent "No Minors" sign and stepped inside Health Lifestyle's second-floor shop, where friendly staff were busy restocking the shelves Friday afternoon with glass bongs and a variety of buds, butters and edibles. The dispensary planned to hand out a free joint or cookie to any member over this weekend to celebrate reopening after a Feb. 5 police raid. [continues 579 words]
Canadians buying legal marijuana have a much slimmer selection than their American counterparts. That's because Health Canada-licensed producers are allowed to sell only dried cannabis through the mail to registered patients and must stay away from "edibles" or other forms of the drug that are regulated south of the border. However, like medicinal and recreational pot sold in Washington State, Canada's 17 licensed producers offer dozens of strains of dried leaves that help patients treat a range symptoms. Canadian producers must also display the potency of the batch's tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) content, as enforced under the federal Ministry of Health's current Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations. [continues 492 words]
Economic Development Corporation Says Medical Marijuana Operation City's Sixth-Biggest Employer At a time when municipalities across Canada were fighting to restrict industrial-scale medical marijuana producers, Nanaimo did the opposite and has concluded in a new report the business has been good for both workers and city coffers. The Vancouver Island city began courting U.S.-based cannabis conglomerate Privateer Holdings in early 2013 as its Canadian subsidiary, Tilray, was aspiring to win a licence under the system the Conservative federal government would roll out a year later. Tilray first started selling its product in April last year and its facility now grows cannabis at roughly 90 per cent of its full capacity, and says it is mailing to about 4,000 clients, more than a third of whom reside in Ontario. [continues 594 words]
Fire chiefs testifying on opposite sides of a constitutional challenge to Canada's medical-marijuana laws disagree on whether growing medicinal pot at home poses an increased fire or safety risk, a federal court in Vancouver heard Tuesday. Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis's affidavit said that more than half his city's illegal and licensed operations posed a "high or extreme" electrical risk, and about a quarter of both illicit and licensed operations had observable mould, according to his report on 1,800 inspections by a joint municipal-RCMP team over the last decade. Nearly all (98 per cent) licensed growers had modified their structure without a permit, Chief Garis's affidavit stated. [continues 371 words]
The RCMP had no data to back up their claims that medical marijuana grow operations under Canada's old licensing system were inherently dangerous to producers and magnets for violent thieves and organized criminals, an expert told the Federal Court Thursday. RCMP Corporal Shane Holmquist, a supervisor on the Federal Serious Organized Crime Section's marijuana enforcement team, made headlines last year when he filed his affidavit in this case stating there was an "overwhelming temptation" for growers licensed under the old federal medical marijuana system to divert extra pot to the black market. His affidavit also stated that such producers face risks from mould, fire and electrical hazards and also attract organized crime groups because, quoting a 2005 RCMP report, "marihuana cultivation and trafficking represents the single most common (and most lucrative) activity pursued by organized crime." [continues 589 words]
Plaintiffs Say Their Charter Rights Were Violated When the Government Enacted Regulations That Made Personal Growing Illegal One of the four people asking the Federal Court to overturn Canada's new medical marijuana laws says he grows his own to help him cope cheaply with serious and chronic pain and that being deprived of it will unconstitutionally force him to choose between his medicine and jail. But government lawyers contend allowing individuals to grow is a security, fire and health risk for patients, their neighbours and children who may be exposed to the drug. As well, the government contends, it is too difficult to ensure the marijuana being grown is medically effective. [continues 580 words]
Many of Canada's licensed medical marijuana producers mail pot straight to their patients from vast warehouses protected by perimeter fencing, steel doors with card locks and extensive security camera systems operating 24/7. In contrast, many of Vancouver's roughly 60 marijuana dispensaries operate in a legal grey area out of accessible storefronts, where mellow staff offer customers a pleasant retail experience. Now, the owner of the city's largest chain of dispensaries says he is beefing up security after the city's first armed robbery of one of these stores over the weekend. Employees at a South Vancouver Weeds Glass and Gifts outlet were robbed at gunpoint for "maybe $500" of dried marijuana, according to owner Don Briere. [continues 498 words]
Three years after the Supreme Court of Canada cleared the way for more supervised injection sites, Canada still only has its original Vancouver facility and proponents for others across the country say an onerous process to get approval is likely to become even more difficult with a new law expected to pass this spring. Only one new application for a supervised injection site has been forwarded to Health Canada since the ruling in September, 2011. Public-health officials and advocates are worried that the agency is "dragging its heels" in anticipation of Bill C-2, which will add many more steps for applicants wanting an exemption to Canada's drug laws needed to run such a facility. [continues 918 words]
Briere Says He'll Continue to Sell Small Amounts - Medical Note or Not - Until His Hand Is Forced The cannabis crusader behind Vancouver's largest and laxest chain of dispensaries says he will continue selling small amounts of pot to customers - even if they can't prove they need it for medicinal purposes - until the drug is legalized or he is again charged with trafficking. Don Briere says his eight-store Weeds Glass and Gifts chain will continue its practice of selling under a gram of combustible or edible cannabis to those without a federal medicinal licence or a note from a naturopath or doctor. The colourful 63- year-old entrepreneur says public opinion has shifted further in his favour from 2004 when his Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop was surrounded by the VPD's emergency response team and he was charged with trafficking for selling recreational pot over the counter. [continues 816 words]
Our Reporter Had No Trouble Getting the Medical Green Light Required by Vancouver Marijuana Dispensaries Recreational marijuana may as well be legal in the city of Vancouver given how easy it is for an adult to buy from a fast-growing number of dispensaries openly selling cannabis to customers. In 2010, there were five dispensaries in the city, according to police. In January last year, police counted a dozen. Most were concentrated in the city's Downtown Eastside or along Kingsway. [continues 3310 words]
Canada Border Services warns buyers against trying to cross the border BELLINGHAM, Wash . - There was a handful of old hippies in tie-died shirts, an industrial hemp activist holding up a base of the green plant as well as a drag queen seeking a particular strain of cannabis to stay "awake and active" when dancing. But most of the people at the grand opening of Top Shelf Cannabis were locals as unassuming as the Bellingham strip mall that houses one of Washington state's first recreational marijuana retailers. [continues 640 words]
BELLINGHAM, WASH. - There was a handful of old hippies in tie-dyed shirts, an industrial hemp activist holding up a base of the green plant as well as a drag queen seeking a particular strain of cannabis to stay "awake and active" when dancing. But most of the people at the grand opening of Top Shelf Cannabis were locals as unassuming as the Bellingham strip mall that houses one of Washington state's first recreational marijuana retailers. Inside, screen-topped Mason jars were brought out from their glass display cases so people could sniff samples of about 15 different strains of "combustibles" (dried cannabis that is smoked). Hemp rolling papers ($2) and hand-held glass bongs ($20) were popular purchases. Happy customers high-fived as they examined the two-gram packages of buds, which had slick labels describing the THC and moisture content as well as numerous possible side-effects. [continues 684 words]
