Weeks after being raided by British Columbia\u2019s provincial police, one of the province\u2019s oldest cannabis dispensaries received backing from local lawmakers, with a vote to support a special exemption originating from the Victoria city government. The exception could allow the dispensary to remain open without the license mandated by Canada\u2019s Cannabis Act, but it remains to be seen if the decision will be honored by provincial and national authorities.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club<\/a>\u00a0has been supplying thousands of local patients with medical cannabis for over 20 years, and bills itself as Canada\u2019s \u201coldest compassion club.\u201d Since 1996, it has openly purveyed cannabis products from its storefront on Johnson Street in downtown Victoria, BC\u2019s capital near the southern tip of Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n But it is one of many dispensaries in Canada that were operating in a legal \u201cgray area\u201d before passage of the Cannabis Act in 2018, and have since been\u00a0subject to a crackdown<\/a>. It\u2019s been something of a perverse irony that \u201clegalization\u201d in Canada has meant raids and closure for many dispensaries \u2014 even in areas where there aren\u2019t enough licensed ones to meet local demand. This southwest corner of British Columbia is definitely\u00a0one of those areas<\/a>.<\/p>\n The VCBC\u00a0was raided<\/a>\u00a0on the morning of Nov. 14 by the provincial police force known as the\u00a0Community Safety Unit<\/a>, for being out of compliance with BC\u2019s Cannabis Control & Licensing Act. The police seized a range of inventory. No arrests were made, and the store was able to re-open \u2014 but was now clearly under threat.<\/p>\n On Jan. 8, in response to the raid, the VCBC and its supporters held a protest outside the offices of BC Finance Minister Carole James, who oversees implementation and enforcement of the cannabis regulations in the province.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to convince the government that it\u2019s in their best interest to grant us a temporary exemption so that we can continue our work and work with the government towards becoming fully compliant with the law,\u201d VCBC founder Ted Smith told\u00a0CTV News<\/a>\u00a0at the protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, the provincial government hasn\u2019t responded other than their official rhetoric that we\u2019re not in compliance with the law and that\u2019s why we\u2019re being shut down,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBut their responses on paper have been things like, \u2018our patients are not aware of the safety of the products because they\u2019re not as tested as Health Canada\u2019s products.’\u201d<\/p>\n Smith said that the dispensary was not getting complaints from patients about irregular products.<\/p>\n However, while provincial bureaucracy remained unyielding, the local municipal authorities were swayed. At a meeting the very next morning, Victoria city councilors voted unanimously to support the exemption.<\/p>\n As the local cannabis news site\u00a0Mugglehead<\/a>\u00a0reports, the resolution commits Mayor Lisa Helps to pen a letter requesting that the provincial government allow the VCBC to continue providing \u201cresponsible access and a safe, welcoming community space for medical cannabis users.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Victoria\u00a0Times-Colonist<\/a>\u00a0reports, the VCBC is the oldest of many dispensaries that have survived precariously in the legal \u201cgray area\u201d of Canada\u2019s medical marijuana industry. The club was among those that waged legal battles with the federal government over access to medical marijuana \u2014 financed in part by sales of $25 \u201cCannabonds,\u201d redeemable with a quarter-ounce of high-grade bud after a favorable decision.<\/p>\n The VCBC\u2019s legal efforts\u00a0were responsible for a landmark 2015 decision in which the\u00a0Supreme Court of Canada ruled<\/a>\u00a0that cannabis extracts such as oils and edibles may be used as medicine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Other such legacy dispensaries in the area are also getting raided. On Dec. 18, the\u00a0Hammond Compassion Society<\/a>\u00a0in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge was raided by police. Municipal authorities were quick to wash their hands of the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing is taking away the supply to everyone in Maple Ridge,\u201d town councilor Gordy Robson complained to the\u00a0Maple Ridge News<\/a>, explicitly referring to provincial authorities.<\/p>\n The Grass Roots Medicinal Cannabis dispensary in Squamish was\u00a0likewise raided<\/a>\u00a0by the police in November. It was forced to close, and provincial authorities have launched forfeiture proceedings against it. Another Squamish dispensary, 99 North, was\u00a0shut down in a raid<\/a>\u00a0as well \u2014 despite the fact that it had a pending license application.<\/p>\n Ironically, all this is happening as John Horgan, who leads British Columbia\u2019s legislature, is talking a big game about province\u2019s old-school cannabis economy.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember being in Amsterdam and seeing all of the BC\u00a0bud awards that were being given out at the time when the product was illegal, and it\u2019s ironic we seem to be having more Ontario product being distributed in BC through the legal market,\u201d Horgan\u00a0said at a press conference<\/a>\u00a0last month.\u00a0\u201cWe in BC\u00a0have a legendary product and that\u2019s not making its way to the legal market.\u201d<\/p>\n Horgan said that the legislature was \u201cgoing to continue to work as best we can to ensure that the consuming public gets a quality, safe product, and that we reap the benefits that we can of having a long tradition of cultivating cannabis here in BC.\u201d<\/p>\n And indeed, in November, the BC government provided $675,000 to\u00a0help illicit cannabis growers in the Kootenays<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the mountainous southeastern region of the province \u2014 enter the legal market. The idea is to help the region\u2019s estimated 2,500 growers become registered craft cultivators.<\/p>\n But Ted Smith, perhaps not surprisingly, is skeptical of such efforts, charging that BC\u2019s regulatory regime has allowed large-scale licensed producers to dominate the market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re destroying the whole concept of BC\u00a0bud with what they\u2019ve done,\u201d Smith told the\u00a0Victoria News<\/a>\u00a0after Horgan\u2019s press conference. \u201cIf they were interested in helping they would not only have done a lot more to make sure that small growers could easily get licenses, but they would also be having coffee shops and places where people could come and smoke the product.\u201d<\/p>\n Correction: This article has been amended to note that the city has supported an exemption. A previous draft stated incorrectly that they had granted an exemption.<\/em><\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think more places should allow gray market dispensaries to operate?<\/p>\n The post Canadian City Supports Exemption for an Unlicensed Dispensary<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Weeks after being raided by British Columbia\u2019s provincial police, one of the province\u2019s oldest cannabis dispensaries received backing from local lawmakers, with a vote to support a special exemption originating from the Victoria city government. The exception could allow the dispensary to remain open without the license mandated by Canada\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[178,34,4589,50,141,1898,846,90,1244],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40875,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40874\/revisions\/40875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Medical Marijuana Pioneers Left in the Cold<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u2028Comfort Coming to Kootenays?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Canadian City Supports Exemption for an Unlicensed Dispensary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"