Pubdate: Fri, 01 May 2015
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Allen Garr

POT BATTLE ECHOES FIGHT OVER INSITE

The battle lines being drawn over Vancouver's plans to regulate pot 
dispensaries should seem familiar. The last time we saw two sides 
forming in this exact configuration was the tussle over Vancouver's 
supervised drug injection site, Insite.

Recall that the city, under former NPA mayor Philip Owen, first led 
the charge. The province backed the project arguing that it was a 
matter of health care and therefore under the province's jurisdiction.

When Ottawa was run by the Liberals and former Prime Minister Paul 
Martin, Insite was granted a certificate through Health Canada that 
allowed it to have illegal drugs on the premises. Vancouver Coastal 
Health Authority was a partner in the project.

When Stephen Harper's Tories took over, things changed dramatically. 
Harper's crowd tried to shut down Insite only to be forced by the 
Supreme Court to allow the facility to continue as it has been to this day.

The Vancouver cops, who could bust anyone on their way to Insite and 
in possession of illegal drugs, took the position that it was in the 
best interest of the community and maintaining public order to devote 
their efforts elsewhere.

This time around the issue is not heroin; it is marijuana, a drug 
that has had its own history of political vilification.

In the early years of the last century, both booze and pot were 
prohibited south of the border. The prohibition on alcohol 
consumption was lifted in the face of a massive increase in organized 
crime profiting from the illegal production, importation and distribution.

Marijuana, which was considered a drug used by the marginalized - 
African Americans, Mexicans, jazz musicians and artists - continued 
to get a bad rap thanks in part to the liquor lobby.

The pitch to keep it illegal was focused in warnings about the risk 
at which it put our children.

A 1936 propaganda film with the original title Tell your Children 
eventually evolved into a cult classic called Reefer Madness. It was, 
according to IMDb's plot summary, a cautionary tale "that features a 
fictionalized and highly exaggerated take on the use of marijuana. A 
trio of drug dealers leads innocent teenagers to become addicted to 
reefer cigarettes by holding wild parties with jazz music."

It didn't work. By the '60s, marijuana became the drug of choice 
(along with a psychedelic buffet from peyote to LSD) by another group 
of outsiders, the hippies.

Subsequently, it found increasing use for its medical benefits in 
reducing nausea, particularly among first cancer patients undergoing 
chemotherapy and the AIDS patients enduring a whole raft of drugs in 
the struggle to stay alive.

The first "Compassion Club," a location for people who benefit from 
smoking pot, opened in Vancouver in 1997.

It was the federal Liberals under Jean Chretien who, having been 
pushed by an Ontario Court of Appeal decision in 2001, granted 
permits for folks with medical needs to grow their own pot or have 
others grow it for them. From then until 2014, the number of permits 
grew from 100 to 40,000.

And then along came Harper.

In 2013, the old permit system was tossed out. If you wanted pot, you 
needed a doctor's certificate and you had to order the drug online 
from a federally certified grower.

That decision was challenged in court and there is currently an 
injunction against the decision to cancel the old system of permits.

But - blame Harper - since that 2013 decision, the number of pot 
shops in Vancouver has exploded. It has become, as Vancouver Police 
head of the major crimes unit and the drug squad, Supt. Mike 
Porteous, sees it, "the wild west."

So once again, lining up to support the regulation of distribution of 
this drug, we have the cops, the city, the regional health authority, 
and, most recently, the provincial government.

Opposed are the feds in the person of Health Minister Rona Ambrose 
with a script straight out of Reefer Madness. Flying in the face of 
evidence to the contrary which shows liberalization of pot laws has 
led to a declining use amongst youth in other countries including 
Holland, she posits that "normalizing marijuana could mean more than 
tripling its use by youth."

It may not be evidence-based but it is political red meat for the 
Tory base as we head into a federal election this year.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom