[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by rubecube

The other thing is that weed is virtually legal in BC. We have dispensaries all over Victoria and Vancouver, and getting a "medicinal card" is ridiculously easy. I don't smoke the stuff because it gives me anxiety but from what I've heard the dispensaries are cheaper and the product is better than what you can get from your average dealer. Also quite a bit more selection.

Campbell, also the former chief coroner of BC, says he's confused about the Conservative government's continued opposition to the use of marijuana in a medical capacity.

"Government has lost it on this one. the supreme court says this is medicine … and at the same time the minister continues to rant. It's bizarre.

"I think she's a good minister just not an especially a good health minister."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...ions-1.3129204

This article is from 2012:

The Stop the Violence coalition released a letter Thursday from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and six others to B.C. Premier Christy Clark, NDP leader Adrian Dix and Conservative leader John Cummins.

“Given the ongoing gang activity, widespread availability of marijuana and high costs associated with enforcement, leaders at all levels of government must take responsibility for marijuana policy,” the letter said. “We are asking you as provincial leaders to take a new approach to marijuana regulation.”

Several municipal councils in B.C. have passed motions supporting the decriminalization of marijuana.

Robertson said Thursday that a motion to endorse the Stop the Violence BC campaign will be on the agenda of Vancouver city council next week.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Robertson said in a news release. “Widespread access to marijuana for our youth, grow-ops that provide funds for organized crime, and significant costs to taxpayers for enforcement are all compelling reasons to re-examine our failed approach to prohibition.”

‘Huge profits for organized crime and widespread gang violence in our cities are the result of this failed policy’
Corrigan said the detrimental effects of marijuana prohibition are visible across B.C.’s Lower Mainland on a daily basis.

“Huge profits for organized crime and widespread gang violence in our cities are the result of this failed policy. We put our citizens and communities at risk by not taking action now,” he said.

North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto also signed the letter, saying: “We stand together as B.C. mayors because we think our communities will be safer and our children better protected from criminal elements if we overturn marijuana prohibition and implement policies that strictly regulate the adult use of cannabis.”

The others who signed the letter are Vernon Mayor Robert Sawatzky, Armstrong Mayor Chris Pieper, Metchosin Mayor John Ranns, Enderby Mayor Howie Cyr and Lake Country Mayor James Baker.

The mayors’ letter comes after four former B.C. attorneys general — including former B.C. premier and federal health minister Ujjal Dosanjh — called for marijuana decriminalization in February. Former Vancouver mayors Larry Campbell, Mike Harcourt, Sam Sullivan and Philip Owen made a similar call for pot decriminalization late last year.

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/tag...te-and-tax-pot

3 Years later, the city of Vancouver was forced to act:

The City of Vancouver has approved a two-tier licensing system to curb the explosion of illegal medical marijuana dispen- saries, defying warnings from the federal government by becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to regulate storefront pot sales.

Councillors voted on Wednesday to introduce a new business licensing system for compassion clubs and dispensaries, whose numbers have ballooned to about 100 across the city, up from a handful just several years ago. The vote followed extensive public hearings, in which most speakers generally supported regulation, and stern letters from federal cabinet ministers urging council to abandon its plan.

The provincial Health Minister and the head of the local health authority have voiced their support for the rules, and Victoria’s mayor says her staff are already studying Vancouver’s new bylaw and will report back to council in September about imposing similar regulations on the 19 dispensaries in that city.

Before they voted, Mayor Gregor Robertson and all six councillors from his governing Vision Vancouver party lambasted the federal Conservative government as being “tone deaf” on the issue of dispensaries and for creating a licensed medical marijuana system they say is difficult for many patients to access.

(For more on Vancouver’s dispensaries, read The Globe’s in-depth explainer: Vancouver’s pot shops: Everything you need to know about marijuana dispensaries)

Councillor Geoff Meggs said Vancouver’s regulations send federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose a clear message to “wake up.”

“You are completely out of touch with the realities on the ground,” Mr. Meggs said of the minister. “The policies that you’re advocating are backwards and destructive and they’ve driven us to take the steps that are necessary here today.”

Ms. Ambrose said in an e-mailed statement she was “deeply disappointed” by the vote, which she said would make it easier for kids to obtain and smoke marijuana.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle25093608/

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has rejected a warning from the federal Health Minister to scrap a proposal to regulate marijuana dispensaries.

The proposal would create a new class of business licence for the operations while imposing hefty fees and restricting where they can be located.

“The city’s approach right now is a common-sense one to deal with regulating the proliferation – we have over 80 of these dispensaries and they exist because of the federal landscape and the actions taken or not taken by the federal government,” Mr. Robertson told reporters on Friday after a regional mayors’ meeting in Burnaby, B.C.

The number of marijuana dispensaries in Vancouver has ballooned to more than 80, up from about 20 just a couple of years ago. That rapid expansion has happened without much interference from the city or its police force.

The city has said it had no choice but to regulate dispensaries due to the federal government’s inaction on the issue.

Mr. Robertson’s comments came hours after Health Minister Rona Ambrose, visiting the Lower Mainland, repeated her warning from a letter to the mayor this week urging him to back away from the plan.

Mr. Robertson said access to medical marijuana is “a real issue” for Vancouver, suggesting the proposal would help the city deal with problems such as unauthorized access and proliferation. The plan is to be discussed at a city council meeting next week.

“As a city, we just can’t let these shops be everywhere all over town. And certainly we don’t want them close to schools. We don’t want access for kids to be as easy as it has been. So we’re taking some steps, looking at a public hearing to consider those in the days ahead and we want to be sure, first and foremost, that kids are not getting access as we’ve seen in the past.”

Ms. Ambrose was blunt in her remarks Friday. “I would just say to him, ‘Don’t do it,’” Ms. Ambrose told reporters in a question-and-answer session after a presentation on immunization.

Ms. Ambrose said Vancouver should instead shut down the dispensaries because they are illegal under federal law. Ms. Ambrose drew a distinction between the Vancouver dispensaries and what she described as the strict, regulated regime of the federal system, which was a response to court decisions that said patients must have reliable access to medical marijuana.

“At the end of the day, legitimizing this kind of commercial operation, selling marijuana on the street is normalizing it. I think that’s a bad message for young people. When you normalize something, the message is that it is normal, that it is OK and that it is safe. It is not safe for kids to smoke marijuana.”

Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.’s provincial health officer, said Vancouver is taking “sensible” measures under the circumstances. He said it is better to have marijuana in a regulated environment even if it is an illegal product, “than to have people skulking around the back streets where cannabis is sold.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle24106383/