Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jan 2016
Source: Kelowna Capital News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016, West Partners Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: Tom Fletcher
Referenced: http://www.nelsonstar.com/news/365987791.html

FEDS WEED OUT MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION

With unlicensed marijuana dispensaries popping up in urban areas and
thousands of unregulated medical licences for home growing still in
legal limbo, the Trudeau government is starting work on its promise to
legalize recreational use.

Marijuana was a media darling in the recent election, but meeting in
Vancouver with provincial ministers last week, federal Health Minister
Jane Philpott found herself preoccupied with issues deemed more urgent.

These include shifting our post-war acute hospital model to community
primary care, tackling aboriginal health care needs, pooling
pharmaceutical purchases to slow rising costs, and meeting an urgent
Supreme Court of Canada directive to legalize assisted dying.

At the closing news conference in Vancouver, Philpott was asked how
recreational marijuana should be sold. Licensed medical growers want
exclusive rights do it by mail as permitted by the Harper government,
another measure forced by our high court. That would shut out the rash
of supposedly medical storefronts, which city halls in Vancouver and
elsewhere imagine they can regulate.

Philpott said the question is "premature" and federal-provincial
justice ministers were dealing with it at their meeting. Ottawa will
have a "task force" too.

Vancouver descended into a pot store free-for-all due to benign
neglect from council and police, and Victoria isn't far behind.
Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang, a rare voice of reason in the Big Smoke,
has protested dispensaries using street hawkers to attract young
buyers, and pot stores setting up near schools.

Other communities, more aware of their limitations, have resisted
issuing business licences. One recent proposal in the Victoria suburb
of View Royal came from a fellow who insisted marijuana extract had
cured his cancer. This is typical of claims that proliferate on the
Internet, and is one of many warning signs about dispensaries that put
up red cross signs to sell pot products with exotic names.

B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake was more forthcoming a few days
earlier, responding to a Vancouver reporter who judged marijuana more
interesting than his just-announced plan to hire 1,600 more nurses by
the end of March.

Lake noted that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is keen to sell
marijuana through the province's monopoly liquor stores. B.C.'s
government liquor store union has also endorsed this idea, forming an
unlikely alliance with non-union private stores to get in on the action.

"There are public health officials that I've talked to who say that
the co-location of marijuana and liquor sales is not advisable from a
public health perspective," Lake said. "I think whatever we do it has
to be highly regulated, quality control has to be excellent and above
all we must protect young people."

Yes, liquor stores check ID. But the notion that marijuana might be
sold next to beer and vodka in government stores deserves sober second
thought, and serious scientific work of the kind that has shown damage
to developing brains from teenage marijuana use.

Of course all of this urban hand-wringing over pot stores ignores the
de facto legalization that has existed across B.C. for decades.

The Nelson Star had a funny story last week about a local woman's
discovery on Google Earth. Zooming in on area mountains, one finds not
only the Purcell landmark Loki Peak, but also Weed Peak, Grow Op Peak,
Cannabis Peak and Hydroponic Peak.

Whatever the source of this cyber-prank, it could also be applied to
other regions of B.C.

For the record, I'll restate my long-standing position that
legalization is the only logical answer. I'll say the same about other
drugs that drive most B.C. crime, but that's a subject for another
day.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt