Pubdate: Mon, 18 Apr 2016
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2016 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180

POT ACTIVIST DANA LARSEN ENDS OVERGROW THE GOVERNMENT TOUR IN HALIFAX

Marijuana Party founder Dana Larsen, busted less than two weeks ago on
a national pot-promoting tour, said he feels right at home in Halifax.

"It's coming along really nicely here," he said in an interview before
a speech at the High Life Social Club on Spring Garden Road.

"It's getting some new dispensaries opening up. I suspect that the
dispensary revolution will spread across the Maritimes."

Halifax Regional Municipality has denied business licences to
operators such as Tasty Budds Compassion Club. The operator has
appealed the decision to the UARB and opened a second location. Farm
Assist's operator has been charged with trafficking.

"There have been some challenges," Larsen said.

Vancouver has about 120 marijuana dispensaries but the city plans to
shut 100 of them.

That's not going to work, he said. Larsen suspects the Trudeau
government will take two years to study matters and by then there will
be 1,000 dispensaries across the country, several hundred of them with
business operating permits.

"At that point, whatever legalization model the Liberals put in place
will have to include the dispensary model in some way, because it will
be the reality," he said.

Usually Larsen hands out bags of seeds at events designed to promote
more open marijuana laws, but he was charged April 6 in Calgary. Now
he has conditions that won't allow him to possess pot or the seeds, so
he had an assistant on hand Sunday.

Larsen is on a 14-city cross-country trip called the Free Marijuana -
Overgrow the Government Tour. Halifax is the final stop.

Mark Morrison, a veteran with PTSD, came from Fredericton to see
Larsen.

"Events like this allow people access to information (about cannabis)
that they maybe couldn't get in other ways,"

Health Canada regulations say medical marijuana patients can only
purchase their marijuana from a federally licenced grower.

There are a little over two dozen licenced growers in Canada, none in
Nova Scotia.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt