{"id":54016,"date":"2015-07-01T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=54016"},"modified":"2015-07-01T17:47:10","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T09:47:10","slug":"municipalities-will-follow-vancouvers-lead-on-marijuana-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/01\/municipalities-will-follow-vancouvers-lead-on-marijuana-councillor\/","title":{"rendered":"Municipalities will follow Vancouver\u2019s lead on marijuana: councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Shutterstock<\/a>
(Shutterstock image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2013 The Conservative government\u2019s \u201cideological\u201d changes to federal medicinal marijuana rules will prompt other cities to follow Vancouver’s lead and regulate pot shops on their own, a local councillor says.<\/p>\n

Kerry Jang said he has heard from other municipalities, including Victoria, that are eyeing Vancouver\u2019s new bylaws to manage a recent spike in medicinal pot businesses.<\/p>\n

Last week, Vancouver became the first Canadian municipality to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, requiring operators to pay a $30,000 licensing fee and locate at least 300 metres away from community centres, schools, and each other.<\/p>\n

Jang said the city was forced to respond due to the federal government\u2019s failures, which have fuelled the growth of dispensaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the total mishandling of the medical marijuana issue that has created the vacuum that has allowed all of these shops to open up across the country,\u201d Jang said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very clear when you have our chief medical officer for the City of Vancouver coming out and saying, \u2018Guess what, the federal regulations caused this problem, so we\u2019ve got to fix it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after the decision was announced last week, Health Minister Rona Ambrose said she was \u201cdeeply disappointed\u201d to learn a municipality would take regulating medical marijuana storefronts into its own hands.<\/p>\n

The disappointment is mutual, Jang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the federal minister can do is say how outraged she is with the Supreme Court… and that she’s gravely disappointed with the City of Vancouver,\u201d Jang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, quite frankly, we are gravely disappointed with the federal government and this health minister for not coming to the table and working with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambrose was not available for an interview on Tuesday, but she offered a statement through a spokesman.<\/p>\n

\u201cStorefronts selling marijuana are illegal and under our government will remain illegal,\u201d said press secretary Michael Bolkenius. \u201cWe expect the police to enforce the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jang said the bylaws give the city more power to target \u201cbad actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose pot shops where there was clear evidence of organized crime, we shut them down,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten warrants, we\u2019ve raided them. We\u2019ve done that. Those that are selling to kids, we stopped them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria MP and NDP health critic Murray Rankin accused the Conservatives of botching the medical marijuana file.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor of Vancouver is doing what a responsible municipality should do in the face of the chaos that the … federal government’s simple-minded approach has created,\u201d Rankin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s looking after the interests of his community using the powers of zoning and land-use that are available to the municipality of Vancouver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rankin agrees other municipalities are going to be faced with \u201cexactly the same issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, the federal government indicated Health Canada would get out of the business of producing pot for patients. New rules took effect a year later, which opened up a commercial industry \u201cresponsible for the production and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The changes also dismantled a departmental system that was borne of a 2001 Supreme Court ruling which upheld marijuana access rights for patients.<\/p>\n

In June, the top court redefined medicinal pot and unanimously ruled it can be legally consumed in a number of ways, including brownies, teas and cooking oils.<\/p>\n

The government continues to say it \u201cdoes not endorse the use of marijuana, but the courts have required reasonable access\u201d to authorized patients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2013 The Conservative government\u2019s \u201cideological\u201d changes to federal medicinal marijuana rules will prompt other cities to follow Vancouver’s lead …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":12594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-54016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-original","mauthors-kristy-kirkup","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}