Tag Archives: dispensaries

Varied takes on marijuana turn Metro Vancouver into a patchwork of unpredictable enforcement

Sarah Bowman was handcuffed by Burnaby RCMP after smoking a joint.
Sarah Bowman was handcuffed by Burnaby RCMP after smoking a joint.

Late one evening last February, Sarah Bowman was on her way home when she was approached by two RCMP officers at the Edmonds SkyTrain Station in Burnaby.

She had just smoked a joint, Bowman recounted in a telephone interview, but she didn’t think she was in real trouble. Bowman explained that she had a doctor’s prescription for the drug and had obtained it with that document at a medicinal-marijuana dispensary in Vancouver.

“I saw police officers making the rounds, so I threw my joint away,” she said. “They walked straight up to me, a gentleman showed me his badge, grabbed my hands, and handcuffed me without me even responding.”

Bowman sat on the ground as officers searched her bags. They didn’t find any marijuana and eventually located both Bowman’s prescription for cannabis and her dispensary membership card. But the RCMP officers dismissed those documents as irrelevant.

They argued that under existing laws, medicinal marijuana must be obtained via mail order from a certified Health Canada supplier. That is accurate (with exceptions) and remains true today.

On November 13, Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau issued a mandate letter that stated the Ministry of Justice should “create a federal-provincial-territorial process that will lead to the legalization and regulation of marijuana”. But Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould (MP for Vancouver Granville) has yet to act on that directive.

Both the Justice Ministry and the RCMP refused to grant interviews. Cpl. Janelle Shoihet, a spokesperson for the B.C. RCMP, did however confirm officers are still enforcing cannabis laws including those that prohibit possession.

Dana Larsen is vice president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries. He told the Straight that although the country remains in a period of transition on marijuana, municipal jurisdictions are policing cannabis as they see fit. Larsen suggested that situation has turned an urban region like Metro Vancouver into an unpredictable patchwork where some jurisdictions zealously enforce drug laws while others turn a blind eye to petty crimes like possession.

“In B.C., it totally depends on the mayor and the mayor and city council,” he said.

Bowman was travelling from Vancouver to New Westminster but stopped in Burnaby to visit her boyfriend. The Vancouver Police Department has long maintained it does not consider marijuana possession an enforcement priority. Meanwhile, in 2014, the New Westminster Police Department recorded a seven-year low for drug offences (going as far back as data is publicly available). But Burnaby is policed by the RCMP.

“They left me shaking uncontrollably and terrified,” said Bowman, who was eventually released without charges. “I used to think that police officers were there to help. Now, I’m paranoid. I’m afraid of police.”

Murray Rankin, opposition critic for justice and NDP MP for Victoria, told the Straightthat stories such as Bowman’s should serve as a warning. He said cities like Vancouver and New Westminster may not consider it a priority to go after someone with a joint but anecdotal evidence suggests the situation is different in jurisdictions covered by the RCMP.

“It’s quite a varied landscape out there,” he said. “We want a coherent position across the country.”

Rankin added that the situation on Vancouver Island is similar to that of Metro Vancouver. The City of Victoria (which has its own municipal police force) has tacitly accepted marijuana storefronts and is drafting regulations comparable to those Vancouver adopted last June. Meanwhile, Rankin continued, in Nanaimo (where the RCMP patrols the streets), marijuana is still getting people into trouble with law enforcement.

Barely an hour after Rankin’s call with the Straight, the RCMP issued a news releasestating they had executed search warrants at three marijuana dispensaries in Nanaimo.

Rankin acknowledged that legalizing marijuana—that is, creating a framework for sales similar to rules that cover tobacco—will be complicated and take time. But he argued it would not be hard for the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis. Rankin noted the Liberals have discussed this as a likely first step, and he wondered when that will happen.

As few as seven percent of B.C. marijuana violations result in charges, according to a 2011 analysis published by the University of the Fraser Valley. But according to B.C. Justice Ministry numbers, from 2003 to 2012, police across the province recorded 173,157 offences related to cannabis.

Larsen emphasized that even without a charge, an apprehension such as the encounter with RCMP Bowman experienced is usually entered into a police database, where it can remain for years and create problems for someone when the apply for a job or travel to the United States.

Like Rankin, Larsen said he accepts that full legalization will likely be a long process. “But there is no reason to continue arresting people for possession,” he said. “Especially when those charges are likely going to be dropped in a few months anyways. What’s the point?”

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This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on December 2, 2015.

2015 stats for marijuana offences show police tactics changed before Vancouver’s dispensary boom

One of Vancouver's largest dispensary operators, Don Briere of Weeds Glass and Gifts, has said he welcomes the city's proposed regulations and hopes they will help bring the industry into the light. Travis Lupick photo.
One of Vancouver’s largest dispensary operators, Don Briere of Weeds Glass and Gifts, has said he welcomes the city’s proposed regulations and hopes they will help bring the industry into the light. Travis Lupick photo.

Over the last several years, the number of medicinal marijuana dispensaries operating in Vancouver has ballooned, from fewer than 20 in 2012 to more than 100 today.

That might have people wondering how police enforcement of marijuana laws has changed during that time, especially since the City of Vancouver lent a great deal of legitimacy to dispensaries when it proposed a legal framework for marijuana sales last April.

As the VPD turned a blind eye to over-the-counter marijuana sales, one might expect the department’s overall numbers for cannabis offences experienced a sharp decline.

But it turns out VPD enforcement numbers have barely changed at all.

During the first six months of 2015, the VPD registered 473 cannabis offences. Multiply that number by two and one can very roughly project 946 for the year.

That compares to 1,048 marijuana offences in 2013 and 864 in 2012.

This means the VPD is on track to record a very average number of marijuana offences this year, despite the proliferation of dispensaries likely giving many people the perception Vancouver police tactics have shifted.

(Numbers for 2015 were obtained via a freedom of information request. The Straightrequested statistics for 2014, but the VPD withheld that data citing a section of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act that allows a public body to refuse disclosure of information previously scheduled for release within 60 days.)

In a telephone interview, the Straight asked Sgt. Const. Brian Montague why it looks like the VPD is continuing to bust people for marijuana while letting dispensaries go about their business.

“The numbers might seem a little misleading until you explain the fact these aren’t arrests, they are not charges; they are criminal offences,” he said. “In the vast majority of cases where we come across cannabis, there isn’t a charge for cannabis recommended.”

When an officer does catch somebody smoking a joint, Montague said the most likely outcome would be for them to destroy the drugs but otherwise let that citizen go about their day. The encounter still goes into a police database as a marijuana offence (along with the offender’s name and related information) but that’s usually where the matter ends.

Montague explained what statistics for 2015 and recent years actually show is that the VPD changed its enforcement strategies on marijuana long before the dispensaries started showing up at the rate they are today.

“We ask, is a recommendation of criminal charges proportionate to the offence that is being committed?” he continued. “And a lot of times, the answer to that is no.”

On September 17, the Vancouver police board formally received a complaint regarding the department’s alleged failure to enforce drug laws against storefronts selling marijuana.

Ahead of that meeting, the VPD prepared a written response to those allegations.

“In the case of dispensaries, the VPD must consider evolving community standards,” it reads. “The City’s decision to create a regulatory framework rather than using its bylaws to shut down dispensaries; the prioritization of police resources when weighed against other more serious drug offences occurring in Vancouver, and the costs and benefits of taking enforcement action against marihuana dispensaries. As a result, the Chief Constable has decided that such actions will only be taken when there are overt public safety concerns present.”

It’s noted there that since 2013, the VPD has executed 11 search warrants against dispensaries when complaints against those locations were filed and found to have merit.

The police board dismissed the September 17 complaint.

After reviewing the data for 2015, Kirk Tousaw, a B.C. lawyer who specializes in drug law, similarly said it’s his experience that in Vancouver, very few of those offences proceed to see people charged with a crime.

“It is a maintenance of the status quo,” he said. “Enforcement of simple [marijuana] possession does not appear to be a high priority.”

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This article was originally published online at Straight.com on October 1, 2015.

From activists to CEOs, here are 14 women who run Vancouver’s booming marijuana industry

Village Dispensary owner Andrea Dobbs is part of a wave of women at the forefront of Vancouver-based cannabis businesses. Travis Lupick photo.
Village Dispensary owner Andrea Dobbs is part of a wave of women at the forefront of Vancouver-based cannabis businesses. Travis Lupick photo.

One of the first lessons a marijuana enthusiast learns is to purge a grow operation of males. Only the females of the cannabis plant—identifiable by pistillate flowers, in contrast to a male’s staminate flowers—produce the cannabinoid chemicals sought for their psychoactive effects. So gardeners pull the male plants out by their roots and discard them as useless.

On the human side, nobody is actively purging Vancouver’s burgeoning marijuana industry of men, but many facets of the business are similarly dominated by women.

“Here in Vancouver, women have been at the forefront of this industry from the very beginning,” said Jamie Shaw, president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries (CAMCD).

She recalled that one of North America’s first marijuana storefronts, the nonprofit B.C. Compassion Club Society, was founded in 1997 with feminist ideals at its core.

“In our early days, 70 percent of the Canadian workforce was male, so we made it policy that 70 percent of our staff had to be female,” Shaw told the Georgia Straight. “And we still have that policy.”

Hilary Black, who cofounded the Compassion Club alongside Shaw, recalls that things happened a little more organically.

“I was 20 years old,” Black recounted. “We were all in our mid- to young 20s. It was just a group of women who were willing to engage in civil disobedience and provide services for marginalized and chronically ill people.”

Regardless of how conscious the group was of its feminist bent back then, Black said the tradition is something worth keeping alive today.

“Women were the roots and the pioneers of medical cannabis in this country,” she emphasized. “And I think it is really important that we continue to see them having a leading voice and influence as the movement moves into an industry.”

Almost 20 years after the Compassion Club opened its doors on Commercial Drive, there are plenty of Vancouver women following in its footsteps. Shaw pointed to Dori Dempster of the Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary, the Village Dispensary’s Andrea Dobbs, and Jessika Villano of Buddha Barn Medicinal Cannabis. Women are also behind some of the city’s most popular oils and edibles, Shaw continued—Brina Levittof Green Penguin Delights, for example, and Apothecary Labs’ Gabriele Jerousek. Another is Mary Jean Dunsdon, better known as Watermelon, whose online cooking show has earned her an international following. (Dunsdon also appeared on the cover of the Straight back in 2008.)

It’s not just in the dispensary industry that women are running the show.

UBC’s Rielle Capler has focused on marijuana and patient care as a research area for more than a decade. Before that, she was another woman involved early with the Compassion Club. More recently, Capler has become a big contributor to evolving legal frameworks, having helped draft the standards and certification program for dispensaries that the City of Vancouver adopted last June.

On the research front, Capler called attention to a cannabis study that was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review on September 14. Bucking the academic trend of papers often being dominated by men’s names at the top, that study was coauthored by eight B.C. researchers, including Capler, plus Kim Crosby, Lynne Belle-Isle, andSusan Holtzman.

“To do the dispensaries, that was civil disobedience,” she said. “And research was an area that needed pioneering as well because it is still a taboo topic.”

Of course, the Canadian cannabis movement’s most visible face is also a woman’s.

Jodie Emery has carried the crown since her husband, Marc, began a five-year prison sentence in 2010. He was released in August 2014 but has appeared content to see Jodie remain the lead spokesperson for the push to reform marijuana laws.

In a telephone interview, Jodie Emery speculated that one of the reasons women have risen to the top of marijuana reform is that pot—or at least its more legitimate areas—is a relatively new industry that’s going mainstream after efforts began to force old-boys’ networks and institutional sexism out of the workplace.

“Because the legal or semilegal marijuana industry is new, there are positions available for women that men may have otherwise filled before,” she said. “Women have had an equal opportunity to be involved.”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, she added. For example, Emery agreed that her husband’s name often still comes first in media reports on the reform movement, despite Marc taking a back seat for some time.

“Something that women have always dealt with is being somebody based on their husband being somebody,” she said. “I struggle with it.…But I’ve never encountered anyone belittling a female [marijuana] activist.”

At the Village Dispensary in False Creek, Dobbs similarly told the Straight that the marijuana industry is better to women than most but is still far from perfect.

“You get a lot of people calling you ‘darling’; you get a lot of references to ‘the kind of girl that smokes weed’,” she said. “Or, ‘She’s pretty for a girl that smokes weed.’ So there is a lot of that kind of stuff.”

Dobbs also noted that as Canada inches closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, she has started to see the industry adopt chauvinistic advertising strategies, like those on display in beer commercials.

“You see a lot of young, hypersexualized girls handing out leaflets and flyers feeling kind of excited to be part of it but not recognizing that they are not being taken seriously,” she explained.

Working to counter that sort of sexism is Women Grow, a professional association with groups in more than 40 cities across North America.

The Vancouver chapter was founded by Shaw and Shega A’Mula, CAMCD chief operating officer and a relatively new face in B.C.’s marijuana movement.

In a telephone interview, A’Mula gave credit to the women who blazed a trail for her and said she hopes Women Grow can help do the same for the next generation. She invited anybody interested to the group’s next meeting, a networking event scheduled for this Thursday (October 1).

“It’s a really empowering environment,” A’Mula said. “It’s not all big business, like other cannabis events.…It’s a way to have fun, connect, and have conversations you probably can’t have elsewhere.”

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This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on September 30, 2015.

Ottawa threatens to bypass VPD and send in RCMP to bust Vancouver marijuana dispensaries

Don Briere of Weeds Glass and Gifts is just one of dozens of Vancouver marijuana dispensary operators whose businesses could be at risk if Ottawa makes good on a threat to shut them down using the RCMP. Travis Lupick photo.
Don Briere of Weeds Glass and Gifts is just one of dozens of Vancouver marijuana dispensary operators whose businesses could be at risk if Ottawa makes good on a threat to shut them down using the RCMP. Travis Lupick photo.

The Vancouver Police Department is playing it cool in response to the suggestion the RCMP could be on its way into the City of Vancouver to shut down marijuana dispensaries.

“We have a great working relationship with the RCMP,” VPD Const. Brian Montague told the Straight. “I’ll let them [RCMP] respond to any insinuation that they are going to come into Vancouver.”

The spokesperson for the force made those remarks in response to the distribution of letters sent from Health Canada to a number of Vancouver marijuana dispensaries. In those documents, Ottawa threatens to send RCMP officers into the City of Vancouver.

“If the [named dispensary redacted] does not immediately cease all activities with controlled substances, we will contact, within 30 days of the date of this letter, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for enforcement action as they deem necessary,” reads a copy of the letter posted online at LiftCannabis.ca.

“The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) prohibits any person from engaging in activities such as production, provision, sale (including offering for sale, import, export, transport, delivering of controlled substances unless authorized under its Regulations),” it continues.

The letters do not include an individual’s signature but are marked “Office of Medical Cannabis” and “Health Canada”.

In an email to the Straight, Health Canada spokesperson Patrick Gaebel subsequently confirmed the letters’ authenticity.

“On September 9, 2015, the Department (Office of Medical Cannabis) sent 13 letters to organizations who were found to be illegally advertising the sale of marijuana. The letters require that all advertising activities with marijuana cease,” Gaebel wrote. “Health Canada will attempt to work cooperatively with all parties involved to encourage compliance. If continued non-compliance is identified, the Department may refer the case to law enforcement agencies for appropriate action.”

If RCMP officers did cross into Vancouver and began to shut down marijuana storefronts, that would be a de facto overruling of both the City of Vancouver and the VPD. Those bodies have at least tacitly worked together on a hands-off approach while stating publicly that the illegal dispensaries are simply not a policing priority.

On the prospect of the RCMP conducting policing activities within the City of Vancouver and without the VPD’s cooperation, Montague declined to comment further and directed questions to the RCMP.

Speaking more generally, Montague said the nature of the Lower Mainland means the VPD and RCMP work together on a routine basis and regularly coordinate regional policing efforts.

“The Vancouver police will go into RCMP jurisdiction cities like Surrey, Coquitlam, and Richmond, to investigate crimes that originated in Vancouver,” he explained. “Of course criminals don’t look at city borders so there are often cases that take us beyond the City of Vancouver as well as cases the RCMP would have that would take them into our jurisdiction.”

The RCMP refused to grant an interview.

In June 2015, the City of Vancouver responded to a proliferation of marijuana storefronts by adopting a legal framework and regulations that Mayor Gregor Robertson has said will bring order to an illegal industry that the federal Conservative government has ignored.

Today (September 10) Robertson responded to the alleged Health Canada letter by calling it “curious”.

According to the Globe and Mail’s Andrea Woo, Robertson added he is hopeful the federal government “actually does something meaningful here — has some modern policy toward marijuana”.

It’s estimated there are more than 90 cannabis shops operating within Vancouver city limits.

In April 2015, Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose and Public Safety MinisterSteven Blaney co-signed a letter sent to Robertson and the VPD wherein they expressed Ottawa’s disapproval of Vancouver’s plan to regulate those dispensaries.

“Storefront sales of marijuana are illegal and under our government, will remain illegal,” it reads. “Like the vast majority of Canadians, the Government expects that police will enforce the laws of Canada as written.”

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The article was originally published online at Straight.com on September 10, 2015.

Vancouver marijuana storefronts blamed for licensed producers falling short of expectations

Authorized producers are growing and storing significantly more marijuana than they are selling, thanks in part to the proliferation of illegal dispensaries.
Authorized producers are growing and storing significantly more marijuana than they are selling, thanks in part to the proliferation of illegal dispensaries.

Canada’s legal medicinal-marijuana suppliers are struggling, and part of the reason why is Vancouver’s illegal cannabis storefronts.

“There is no question it has been a challenge,” Tilray CEO Greg Engel said in a telephone interview. “The proliferation of illegal dispensaries has had a significant impact.”

In June, the Nanaimo-based company, one of the largest legitimate suppliers of cannabis in the country, revealed it was eliminating 61 of 187 staff positions. More recently, Engel told the Straight Tilray has delayed previously announced plans to expand from 60,000 square feet to an operation more than five times that size. “For now, we have ample inventory from our first facility to serve the market on a consistent basis,” he said.

According to information supplied by Health Canada, Tilray isn’t alone in failing to meet expectations for sales that were sky high when the federal government introduced its new framework for medicinal cannabis on April 1, 2014.

Since that date, companies licensed under Ottawa’s Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) have collectively experienced growth from one quarter to the next, but slowly. What’s more, authorized companies are producing and storing significantly more marijuana than they are selling.

MMPR–authorized companies (of which there are now 25) together sold 408 kilograms of marijuana during the second quarter of 2014, 596 the quarter after that, then 789, and then 979 kilograms during the first three months of 2015.

Meanwhile, the amount of marijuana stockpiled in company inventories grew from 1,134 kilograms at the end of June 2014 to 4,810 kilograms as of March 31, 2015.

Health Canada declined an interview request and would not provide the Straight with a breakdown of MMPR sales by province. However, some information is provided in an April 2015 email written by Health Canada bureaucrat Eric Costen and released in response to a freedom of information request. It states that between October 2013 and February 2015, MMPR producers sent 5,272 shipments to addresses in B.C., accounting for seven percent of the national total.

Although B.C. bought only seven percent of Canada’s legal cannabis, the province is home to almost half of all patients authorized to possess medicinal marijuana (48.7 percent, or 18,383 people as of December 2013, the last month Health Canada made province-specific information available).

According to Cam Battley, communications chair for the Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association, that disparity suggests British Columbians holding doctor’s notes for cannabis are finding their medicine outside of Ottawa’s mail-order system. With more than 90 marijuana dispensaries illegally selling cannabis over the counter in Vancouver, he added, it is an easy guess where that might be.

Battley, however, said those challenges are largely confined to Western Canada. “We notice the impact of B.C. dispensaries in B.C.,” he emphasized. “There is a certain culture and a certain comfort level with dispensaries, and we are not seeing that across Canada.”

There are however signs MMPR producers outside of B.C. are similarly struggling to meet expectations. For publicly traded companies, share prices have stumbled. Bedrocan Cannabis Corp., for example, saw its stock hit a high of $1.17 in September 2014 before dropping to a price of 80 cents today. In October 2014, Mettrum Health Corp. debuted on the TSX at $2 a share but, since then, has fallen steadily to a value of $1.50. And in November 2014, the price of a share of Tweed Inc. spiked at $2.88 and now its stock is currently worth about $1.85 per share.

Engel noted dispensaries aren’t the only force affecting indicators like staffing levels. He said Canada’s cannabis industry is still in its infancy, and as companies scale up operations, they learn more cost-effective production methods. Engel maintained that the layoffs announced in June were as much a result of good news as of bad.

“That was a combination of the market having not grown as we had anticipated but also some efficiencies in our facilities,” he said.

Engel cautioned, though, that he sees new challenges on the horizon—for example, a creeping acceptance of recreational marijuana.

“Go back six months ago: many of the dispensaries were looking to have some type of semilegitimate medical association,” he said. “We continue to hear that that is no longer the case, that many of the dispensaries are now simply acting as recreational distribution points.”

Battley remains optimistic. He reported that MMPR producers are collectively seeing their patient base grow at a rate of 10 percent per month, adding: “We’re quite bullish on the future.”

This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on August 12, 2015.

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