Pubdate: Sat, 20 Jun 2015
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Mike Hager
Page: S1

VAPOUR LOUNGES: WHERE A LITTLE DAB'LL DO YOU

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.

"It's honestly to medicate in a social environment: Instead of being 
at home myself all day, I get to be with people," Mr. Blake said when 
asked why he keeps coming back to the lounge, which is connect to an 
Eden dispensary on Davie Street.

A few cannabis cafes run by legalization activists tested the 
leniency of authorities over the years. Several vapour lounges, 
similar to the cafes but offering high-tech smoking devices, have 
opened more recently, including some run by dispensaries, as illegal 
pot shops exploded throughout Vancouver. The city has made it clear 
the vapour lounges will banned under forthcoming dispensary 
regulations, which will create a new business licence for 
marijuanadispensaries and restrict where they can open.

The Vancouver Police Department, which is more concerned with violent 
gangs trafficking harder drugs, typically raids only the cafes and 
vapour lounges that consistently let in minors or violate the 
industry-wide BYOB (bring your own bud) rule by selling product on site.

While the city is preparing to hand out business licences to 
dispensaries, it says it is not prepared to show the same tolerance 
for vapour lounges. The difference, says city manager Penny Ballem, 
is the health risk posed by inhaling the drug - something the city 
and local health authority view as just like tobacco smoke or 
e-cigarette vapour.

"What we know is the publichealth people in this country and in other 
places in the world have determined that vaping has a real risk to 
people's health," she said.

Ms. Ballem said officials can shut down the lounges under an 
anti-smoking bylaw amended last fall that bans vaping in public 
spaces, "whether it's marijuana or anything else." Dispensaries that 
allow customers to consume any cannabis products on site would not be 
able to get the special business licences, she said.

Staff estimated that it would cost about $1.4-million in the first 
year to implement the proposed regulations. Some of that money will 
pay for extra bylaw enforcement officers, Ms. Ballem added.

Still, Ms. Ballem acknowledged that "we're not able to visit 
everybody every day." She said dealing with a rush of dispensaries 
applying for the new business licences will be a "quite significant 
stress" on the city's bylaw enforcement and building inspection branches.

Back at the Cannabis Culture lounge on Davie Street, Mr. Blake 
happily mingles with recreational users, but says he would rather 
vape with a friend or two on the leather sofas than join the crowd at 
the bar oohing and ahhing when the latest metrelong bong is unveiled.

A monthly membership costs $39, and the daily drop-in fee is $5.

Those prices do not include any cannabis products, but those can be 
easily bought by walking up to a desk across the hazy second floor 
from the dab bar. Anyone with Eden dispensary membership can enter a 
separate room, where a host of edibles, buds and waxes can be 
purchased and then brought back into the lounge or taken outside. (In 
the street-level bong shop below, Cannabis Culture also sells 
mind-expanding, and legal, natural drugs such as peyote.)

Criminologist Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University, who has written 
extensively on illegal drugs, said if it is legitimate for people to 
drink alcohol at bars, then vapour lounges should also be allowed, as 
they pose much less risk to public health.

"I remember talking to a police officer once and he said, 'You know, 
Neil, if it wasn't for alcohol, I'd only have a part-time job,'" 
Prof. Boyd said. "You couldn't actually say that about cannabis. 
Cannabis doesn't produce the same kinds of social disruption that 
alcohol abuse does."

In the absence of any regulation from an "obstinate" federal 
government, he praised the "creative approach" taken by the City of 
Vancouver to monitor the dispensaries and vapour lounges.

"Commercial promotion of marijuana is one extreme and criminal 
prohibition is the other," Prof. Boyd said.

"So we need to find a middle ground that doesn't treat people who use 
as criminals, but acknowledges the public health consequences and 
makes sure that young people are wellinformed about the risks of constant use."

The basement smoking and vapour lounge run by David Malmo-Levine, a 
philosophical pot evangelist, was raided 20 years ago for letting 
anyone toke, including teenagers as young as 13.

Mr. Malmo-Levine, who fought and lost his drug trafficking charge 
from that raid in the Supreme Court of Canada, now owns the Stressed 
and Depressed Society Association dispensary. At the East Vancouver 
pot shop, clients must have a Skype consultation with a naturopath 
before getting a membership - a comparatively strict barrier to entry 
compared with the "smoke-easy" that landed him in jail.

He said he still believes Canada should legalize marijuana, even for 
recreational use.

"I don't want to go to jail again, it's not very nice there. The food 
leaves much to be desired and I can't say much for the view either."

*

[sidebar]

VAPING ACROSS CANADA

Of the roughly 20 vapour lounges operating in Canada, the vast 
majority serve medicalmarijuana patients and recreational cannabis 
enthusiasts in Toronto and Vancouver.

Most of Toronto's approximately six vapour lounges operate below the 
radar of the mainstream public and are upstairs from or in the back 
of bong shops. Last month, Ontario passed a bill banning smoking 
e-cigarettes in nonsmoking areas, but it remains to be seen whether 
the law will be used to crack down on vapour lounges, as Vancouver 
has pledged to do using a similar civic health bylaw.

Ottawa's first vapour lounge was forced to close last month for 
violating building codes. Its owner has pledged to have his paperwork 
in order and reopen as early as the end of next week. Meanwhile, 
another vapour lounge has opened in the city, despite the mayor 
voicing his displeasure at the idea of vapour lounges.

In Halifax, a swanky vapour lounge that opened last fall is still 
operating without any reported issues with the authorities.

A handful of compassion clubs in other cities are allowed to offer 
their medical marijuanapatients areas to smoke or vape, because they 
have a right to take their medicine in a safe place away from 
landlords who may not allow them to do so at home, according to 
Dieter MacPherson, executive director of the Victoria Cannabis Buyer's Club.

He said any regulations of vapour lounges must clearly distinguish 
between recreational users and be careful not to restrict patients' 
access to their medicine.

"Progressive regulation is a benefit to everybody involved," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom