Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jan 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Mike Hager
Page: S1

POT SHOPS NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY FROM CHILDREN: SCHOOL TRUSTEE

Vancouver's pot-shop bylaw doesn't keep storefront cannabis sales far 
enough away from students, a school board trustee says, and he's 
urging the city once again to toughen the licensing provisions.

The board asked city council last June to force licensed dispensaries 
to keep 500 metres away from any school, but the new bylaw created a 
buffer zone of 300 metres.

Now trustee Fraser Ballantyne said he has drafted a new motion asking 
for an increase to this limit after hearing again from a local 
resident and business owner.

"He said, ' C'mon, help me out. These are your kids, they're walking 
by these stores every single day,' and there doesn't seem to be any 
congruence here," Mr. Ballantyne said of the letter he received from 
the owner of a martial arts studio.

But Councillor Kerry Jang, the lead on the marijuana file for ruling 
party Vision Vancouver, called Mr. Ballantyne's motion "a bit of 
political grandstanding," and said the city will stick to its 
existing limit, which was approved by experts at Vancouver Coastal 
Health and the provincial health officer.

"We have a number of applications in process now and we'll see how 
300 metres works out. If it doesn't, then we're willing to reopen [ 
the discussion]," he said Monday.

He said the 300-metre rule exists for liquor stores and methadone 
dispensing pharmacies, and could be used by the city to regulate 
whatever form of recreational marijuana sales the federal Liberal 
government eventually legalizes.

Another part of Mr. Ballantyne's motion asks the city to allow senior 
school board staff to "participate directly" in the development 
permit review process for these pot shops.

Mr. Jang said the school board can best offer its input by 
contributing to the public consultation phase that each applicant 
must go through. Of the initial 14 applications that have met the 
city's distance requirements and passed onto the next stage in the 
licensing process, two appear to be within 500 metres of a school.

David Malmo- Levine, a longtime cannabis advocate and owner of one of 
those dispensaries, said Mr. Ballantyne's proposed amendment would 
further stigmatize use of a drug that is not inherently harmful to teens.

"The problem isn't with large use rates, the problem is with abuse 
rates - and abuse can be addressed with legalization, regulation, 
education and teaching people how to use this stuff properly," he said.

Benedikt Fischer, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and 
Mental Health in Toronto, said there is no evidence that enlarging 
buffer zones will do anything to affect the rates of marijuana use among teens.

"Probably for most of the kids who are intent on getting marijuana, 
those [ extra] 200 metres will not be a discernible distance," said 
Dr. Fischer, whose organization released a framework for legalizing 
the drug last year. "Most of the marginal benefit from creating a 
distance is achieved by the 300- metre [ rule], because it's out of 
sight [ from school grounds]."

Dr. Fischer said exaggerating pot's risks or keeping it illegal only 
serves to make the drug more interesting to younger people. "What we 
need to do first and foremost is honest, straightforward education," he said.

The school board had asked the city to kick back a portion of the 
fees paid for the new licences, but Mr. Jang said those fees will 
only go toward the cost of creating the new regulatory regime and 
inspecting the dispensaries for compliance. The board can access more 
funds for youth addiction services through available social 
development grants, he added.

The storefront sale of cannabis products is illegal because these 
dispensaries procure and sell their products outside Health Canada's 
licensed medical-marijuana system, which was overhauled in 2014 and 
now allows about 20 industrial-scale growers to mail their products 
directly to patients who have a doctor's prescription.

Liberal MP Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief who is tapped to 
oversee legalization, has said he wants strict controls on the 
distribution of recreational pot, and B. C. Health Minister Terry 
Lake is not in favour of the dispensaries, which began surging 
several years ago in Vancouver and are now taking hold in Toronto.
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