Vancouver's medical pot problem

A couple of years ago, there were a dozen marijuana dispensaries in Vancouver. Today, there are more than 80.

While the city of Vancouver and the federal health minister trade barbs over the laws and regulations that should or could reign in the city’s proliferating pot trade, Vancouver police say they don’t have the resources to deal with the burgeoning business.

“With 80 stores, the capacity is to focus on those that are using violence to sell drugs in the city of Vancouver and that’s where we’re putting our resources and our finances – to protect people,” says Sgt. Randy Fincham, spokesman for the Vancouver Police Department.

“Basically, what we have to do is take a priority based approach to them. Every other week a new one is popping up in Vancouver, so we then have to look at those.”

On Tuesday, Vancouver city council is expected to discuss a report that recommends the city regulate the burgeoning industry, with a $30,000 fee for business licences and limits on where dispensaries can be located.

The proposal was made public last week and it didn’t take long for Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose to weigh in.

“Legitimizing and normalizing the use and sale of marijuana can have only one effect: increasing marijuana use and addiction,” Ambrose writes in a letter to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson the next day.

Asked about the issue during an event in Vancouver last week, Ambrose would not say what action her government would be prepared to take should Vancouver proceed with the regulation plan.

For his part, Robertson said the city can’t let the dispensaries operate in a vacuum.

“We want to be sure there are some good solid guidelines here,” he told reporters on the weekend. “Ultimately, the federal government is going to need to decide what courses of action they’re going to take with medical marijuana and marijuana in general.”

Home growers abound in B.C.

Since the Ontario Appeal Court first struck down the federal prohibition on medical marijuana 15 years ago, the lawsuits and legal challenges have been furiously reshaping the cannabis landscape.

Most recently, the federal government changed the rules for production of medical marijuana.

Originally, patients with a valid medical marijuana licence from Health Canada were allowed to grow pot for their personal use in their homes.

That changed last fall, when Health Canada began to allow only large, licensed production facilities to grow medical marijuana, which was to be sold via mail-order to patients with valid licences.

A number of home growers challenged the change. A Federal Court judge in British Columbia heard the case earlier this year and a decision is pending.

In the meantime, Ottawa decided to allow home growers to continue to grow until the court renders its decision.

Therein [lies] the problem, says Fincham.

“What you have is a whole bunch of home growers in Vancouver that do not have a legal means to sell marijuana and they have now found an outlet to sell that marijuana and that is through an unlicenced, illegal marijuana store,” he tells Yahoo Canada News.

“Really, unless they’re causing harm or becoming a nuisance, or endangering the neighbourhood, we haven’t really been dealing with them very often just because there’s so many.”

Under the law, it remains illegal to sell marijuana.

Vancouver police have executed nine search warrants since 2013 and arrested 19 people related to marijuana dispensary sales. Twenty charge recommendations have been submitted to the Crown and charges have been filed against six of those 19 people.

Careful not to take sides in the dispute between council and the Conservative government, Fincham says the city can’t outright regulate marijuana sales – because they’re illegal – but they do regulate and licence businesses in Vancouver.

“Everybody’s trying to regulate it to some degree,” Fincham says. “Until that challenge is resolved it will be somewhat confusing but we’re using whatever we have within the law to deal with it.”