RCMP

Janaya Fuller-Evans

Burnaby's first hemp shop has risen from the ashes of the medical marijuana dispensary in Metrotown, which closed following an RCMP raid last summer.

Britney Anne, former director of the Metrotown Medicinal Society, has done everything possible to reopen as a completely legal business, she said in an interview in the new shop last week.

The Burnaby dispensary is no more. Britney Anne and shop staff kept the doors open following the raid on July 28, to let patients know they would have to go elsewhere for medical marijuana, finally closing on Aug. 31.

Jordan Kuyvenhoven, who was working in the shop on the day of the raid, said it was done respectfully.

"They parked a van out front," she said. "It was quiet when it happened." Read more »

BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE

The case against a man charged after 500 marijuana plants were found in a Gibsons home has been dismissed after a judge ruled that RCMP violated the accused’s rights.

In May 2009, Van Dang Truong was charged with production of marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking. Read more »

By Meagan Fitzpatrick, CBC News

The RCMP is now publishing online the addresses of homes where marijuana grow-ops and other drug production operations were found.

The new page on the RCMP's website is part of a stepped up effort by the Mounties to target marijuana grow-ops and the organized crime gangs behind them.

The Marijuana Grow Initiative was launched Wednesday and the RCMP says it complements its National Anti-Drug Strategy. Split up by province, the website lists the addresses where search warrants were executed and lists how many marijuana plants were discovered and when. The database also covers clandestine drug labs that were found in homes.

The page also includes links to the websites of local police services in Ottawa, London and Winnipeg. They also list addresses in their cities where search warrants were executed. Read more »

By Matthew Claxton, Langley Advance

The former clients of a Langley medical marijuana dispensary raided by RCMP last month are organizing a petition and campaign to have it re-opened.

“People should be able to access medicine that has been prescribed by their doctor,” said Dan Mackle, who was the first client of the dispensary, which ran for about 11 months in Langley City on Fraser Highway.

Randy Caine, the local business owner who opened and operated the dispensary, was licensed by Health Canada to supply marijuana to three clients, but had about 150 active members when it was raided in July.

Police seized pot and baked goods along with some cash.

Now Mackle and others from among the former clients are seeking names on a petition asking Langley City to allow a dispensary to re-open as an official pilot project. Read more »

By. Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

A former RCMP officer living with severe multiple sclerosis is suing the Mounties and Health Canada for damages suffered after his former colleagues raided his medical marijuana nursery.

Carlos (Cam) Cavaco, 50, and his wife Marnie O'Neil, who also acts as his sole caregiver, on Thursday filed a B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit alleging that on two separate occasions, less than eight months apart, their medicinal pot plants were destroyed by Sooke RCMP.

The lawsuit says the ensuing stress left them spiritually and emotionally shaken, their health deteriorated and their finances in ruin.

"Health Canada has bullied our physicians, provided irresponsible guidelines and put patients in legal limbo," O'Neil complained in an interview.

"There are gaps in the system that cause people like us to suffer. Worse, these problems combined with police discrimination against our medicine creates an environment where people are harassed, their property and medicine is destroyed and their health is compromised." Read more »

By Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun

The U.S. housing crash has lured some marijuana growers to move their operations south of the border, according to an internal RCMP report obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

"Some VOC [Vietnamese Organized Crime] groups have moved their marijuana grow operations to the United States where the lower cost of real estate (in some regions) allows them to operate a more profitable enterprise and where they can also avoid police/customs detection at the border," states the RCMP report.

The report, obtained by The Sun through the Access to Information Act, also argues that the "softening of marijuana laws" in some states has made the U.S. a more attractive destination for growers than it once was.

For more than a decade Canada has been home to a multibillion-dollar marijuana-growing industry, the bulk of whose product has been shipped to the U.S. Read more »

By Janaya Fuller-Evans, Burnaby Now

Burnaby's medical marijuana dispensary is still signing up members after being raided by the Burnaby RCMP last week.

Burnaby's first medical marijuana dispensary opened on April 15 at 4927 Kingsway.

"The doors are still open," said Dana Larsen, a director with the Metrotown Medicinal Society, on Wednesday. "We're still doing what we can to help people."

However, the society is unable to provide patients with medical marijuana as part of the bail conditions set after three people were arrested in the raid last Thursday, he said.

"We're hoping to provide medicine in the future," Larsen added. Read more »

By Dan Ferguson - Langley Times

The Langley Medical Marijuana Dispensary that was shut down by police will be revived under new management and a different “member-driven” structure.

Randy Caine made the announcement Tuesday night at a public meeting with more than 100 supporters at the Douglas Recreation Centre.

“We will have another dispensary operating in this community in the not-too-distant future,” Caine said.

Caine added the new dispensary will not be located in the office that was raided by police last month and he, personally, will not be involved in its day-to-day operation.

“I have to step back [following the raid],” Caine said.

He did not disclose who would be running the new dispensary, except to say the person is a medical user.

“There is someone within your medicinal community who will bring this back.”

Caine indicated the new dispensary will operate in a more decentralized fashion than his operation, which supplied marijuana from a single site.

He promised he will continue to campaign for a dispensary in Langley.

“I have a lot of time to be annoying [now that my dispensary is closed]”, Caine said.

“I will not leave this.” Read more »

By. D. Williams

I am writing in response to the recent shutdown of the Metrotown Medicinal Marijuana Dispensary.

There has been a new wave of these shutdowns by the RCMP in B.C. since June.

Unless someone needs to use medical marijuana dispensaries for their medicine, they may not understand the importance of having them available to us, the patients.

Unless they have been prescribed opiates for long term usage, they cannot understand the anxiety of waking up in the morning and not knowing what day it is or where they are. Sure, these moments are momentary but they cause great anxiety and stress.

The simple things like writing a letter to a friend become so challenging as you sit in front of the computer and try to figure out what to do next.

Try making yourself a meal to eat and forgetting it’s in the oven. Some may say they’ve done that before, but I can bet it wasn’t on a daily basis.

Try going to bed and forgetting to lock the doors—or not—but getting up seven or eight times just to make sure.

I’m sure you haven’t cried in pain as you try to go about your morning bathroom duties because the opiates are destroying your kidneys. Or spent hours vomiting your dinner because now the opiates have attacked your liver. Read more »

By. Dove Lynne

Why has the Metrotown Medicinal Society been raided by the RCMP when they—and the mayor of Burnaby —visited the establishment around its opening and gave their approval?

I do not pay taxes so that our law enforcement can arrest people for providing and/or consuming one of the most beneficial plants we are blessed to have.

I suspect the push comes from the federal government, who we all know has a certain religious ideology.

Now they are trying to demonize individuals who use cannabis. They need people to fill up all the prisons they’ve been building I guess. They’ve been trying to take away the tolerant attitude that Canadians are known for having towards marijuana use and start a Canadian version of America’s failed “War on Drugs.”

Harper may represent the views and values of the people who voted him in, but he does not represent the views of the majority of Canadians.