Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jul 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

OFFICIALS DISCUSSED LEGALIZING CANNABIS

Newly released e-mails show health brass considered applying for 
exemption to federal laws to allow recreational use of the drug

As Vancouver struggled to regulate its explosion of marijuana 
dispensaries, top provincial health officials considered how they 
could legalize the recreational use of the drug across British Columbia.

In a series of e-mails released through a Freedom of Information 
request, the health officials acknowledged there would likely be 
little progress toward legalization while the staunchly anti-drug 
Conservatives hold power in Ottawa, instead suggesting such a radical 
change would likely come about only if the Liberals win the fall election.

As the city was pondering its pot-shop bylaw last April, Brian 
Emerson, a medical consultant with the provincial Health Ministry 
since 2003, told Vancouver Coastal Health's top doctor and the 
Provincial Health Officer that British Columbia could apply for a 
special exemption to federal drug laws, allowing it to move ahead on 
its own. The group was assessing the public-health rationale behind 
regulating Vancouver's 100 illegal dispensaries and discussed what 
the regulation of all marijuana use across the province could look like.

"Given the emerging legalized markets in Alaska, Washington State, 
Oregon and likely soon in California it might make sense for B.C. to 
join that pack to complete the West Coast arrangement," Dr. Emerson 
said in e-mails released to The Globe and Mail.

He suggested the province apply for a Section 56 exemption to 
Canada's drug laws that allows the federal health minister to exempt 
any person or class of persons from any or all of the legislation 
"for a medical or scientific purpose or [if it] is otherwise in the 
public interest." Dr. Emerson said this province-wide effort in 
legalizing recreational pot use would be guided explicitly by "public 
health oriented goals and objectives" and would only set up 
government run outlets in "accepting communities."

However, that scenario is extremely unlikely under the current 
Conservative government, which has strongly opposed any medical or 
recreational use of cannabis.

The Conservatives have battled in the courts to restrict patients' 
use and production of the drug and have repeatedly stressed the 
danger it poses to public health. Health Canada spokesman Eric 
Morrissette said, in an e-mailed statement, that such exemptions are 
"considered on their own merits on a case by case basis, taking into 
account potential risks to public health and safety," and that his 
department would not speculate on Dr. Emerson's strategy.

In their chain of April e-mails, one of Vancouver's health officers 
John Carsley, a medical health officer with Vancouver Coastal told 
his colleagues to expect movement on the issue "only if the federal 
Libs get in."

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has long supported legalizing marijuana 
and last fall endorsed the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and 
Mental Health's call for the government to monopolize sales of pot, 
limit its availability and ban marketing of the drug.

NDP justice critic Francoise Boivin said if her party wins the Oct. 
19 election it is unlikely to endorse such a scheme.

"I'm not sure that's the way to proceed," Ms. Boivin said Thursday. 
"I think it's going one step too fast."

She said the federal NDP would likely create a panel of experts or a 
body, similar to the 1972 Le Dain Commission, to study legalization 
across the country. She said her party would expect the results of 
any analysis soon and would not move at "the speed that the file has 
progressed in the last few decades."

Canadians use cannabis more frequently than almost any other people 
in the world, with 40 per cent using it once in their lifetime and 10 
per cent admitting to using it in the past year, according to the 
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

John Conroy, a lawyer representing small-scale personal growers 
fighting to compete with the federal government's new commercial 
medical marijuana regime, called Dr. Emerson's strategy "a very 
innovative and creative suggestion that would enable the federal 
government to essentially try it out."

"That would be a way then for hopefully the province and the feds to 
work together to see what the best and most viable method of 
legalization could be," Mr. Conroy said. "Taking into account any 
concerns and coming up with a model that could work across the 
country and then having separate legislation."

Provincial Health Minister Terry Lake was unavailable for an 
interview, but initially endorsed Vancouver's dispensary bylaw in the 
face of what he called a "vacuum created by the federal government."

A spokeswoman said that while the ministry wants the federal 
government to regulate dispensaries, as well as medical marijuana, 
there are no "plans to recommend or implement provincial legislation 
around this topic."

Dr. Emerson did not respond to a request for comment, but Vancouver 
Coastal's chief medical officer Patricia Daly, who was involved in 
the chain of e-mails with him, said such an exemption would be "very 
onerous." That's because her organization encounters trouble with 
Health Canada every year as it renews the exemption for InSite, 
Vancouver's supervised injection site, a process that is now more 
difficult after the Conservatives passed a new bill this year, she said.

"Ultimately the solution has to be a federal solution," Dr. Daly said 
of any push to legalize marijuana.

Perry Kendall, B.C.'s provincial health officer, agreed and said that 
if only B.C. legalized marijuana its government may have problems 
with pot tourists coming from other provinces to use the drug 
recreationally. Dr. Kendall said he and his colleagues across the 
province have not "been shy about stating" their support for 
legalization and opposition to "the current regime of prohibition and 
criminalizing cannabis [which] has been of extraordinarily limited 
utility in preventing use."

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With a report from Ian Bailey 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom