bc

BY BARBARA YAFFE, VANCOUVER SUN

Taxpayers must be wondering how long the list of proponents will have to grow before Ottawa moves to decriminalize pot use.

Last week, the Union of B.C. Municipalities became the latest group to recognize the futility of Canada’s existing marijuana laws, with mayors voting at their Victoria convention to lobby Ottawa on the subject.

Specifically, their resolution called on governments to ”decriminalize marijuana, and research the regulation and taxation of marijuana.”

The voters were mayors and councillors: politicians at the level of government closest to the community, folks who understand how much time and money is being wasted on a useless pursuit.

The UBCM should go further and form its own task force to research pot regulation and taxation. Read more »

By Grant Granger - New Westminster News Leader

There was no outcry of ruining the neighbourhood when a representative of a medical marijuana dispensary made a case for setting up a "pot shop" on 12th Street in New Westminster to the West End Residents Association (WERA) last week.

WERA president Elmer Rudolph said Justin Cleveland of the West Coast Green Light Society made an impressive 15-minute powerpoint presentation and fielded questions for 20 minutes at an association gathering that included about 15 residents.

"It was either noncommittal, or I would say I would have the general feeling it was positive," said Rudolph of the reaction. "I didn't get any indication that anybody felt very strongly anti-dispensary." Read more »

By: Glenda Luymes, The Province

Pastor Ward Draper quotes Scripture and swears in the same breath.

He wears his clerical collar beneath a military-style black uniform as he leads a congregation of addicts at a Saturday-night church service in Abbotsford.

He dispenses communion — and crack pipes.

It’s tempting to call him a contradiction.

But Draper is adamant: “We’re bringing the church back to where it should be,” he says, meaning the streets and alleys where the community’s most vulnerable reside.

Draper is the pastor of The 5 and 2 Ministries — Canada’s only church outside Toronto that does needle exchange — in Abbotsford, the only community in the country with a bylaw banning harm reduction. Read more »

BY IAN MULGREW, VANCOUVER SUN

With three western American states mulling legalized marijuana and the Union of B.C. Municipalities set to debate it, a new group wants the province to stop enforcing the federal criminal ban on pot.

Several prominent cannabis crusaders have drafted a proposed law, called the Sensible Policing Act, and are asking for a provincial commission to study the regulation and taxation of the demonized plant.

Vancouver lawyer Kirk Tousaw said the would-be act instructs police to stop arresting adults for possession, while minors still would not be allowed to possess pot. Read more »

BY LES LEYNE, TIMES COLONIST

Ted Smith is the happiest new taxpayer you can imagine. The longtime marijuana advocate was only too happy to go public recently with news that the Canada Revenue Agency has sent him a demand note for about $150,000 in back taxes.

That's based on just the last few months of operation of the long-running pot-buying club Smith runs for the benefit of people with various medical afflictions.

"In many ways this is a wonderful thing that's happened," he told reporters at a news conference. "Paying taxes - has been my dream since the beginning," he said. Read more »

By Stephen Hui, Georgia Straight

A group of pot-legalization advocates has launched a campaign seeking a referendum on marijuana reforms in B.C.

Sensible B.C. plans to build support for a provincewide initiative vote in 2014, following the signature-gathering process used by the Fight HST campaign in 2010.

Led by Dana Larsen, a founding director of the Vancouver Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary and former B.C NDP leadership candidate, and Kirk Tousaw, the executive director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation and a director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the campaign has drafted proposed legislation it’s calling the Sensible Policing Act. Read more »

By: Mario Bartel - New Westminster News Leader

Like any small businessman Justin Cleveland is passionate about the product he sells.

But when that product is illegal unless it's being obtained by permission of the federal government and with a doctor's prescription, Cleveland knows he has to tread carefully to ease the concerns of neighbouring businesses and residents. Read more »

BY JEFF BELL, TIMES COLONIST

Victoria - The tax man has come knocking at the door of the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada, and its founder said there will be full compliance from the organization.

Ted Smith, who has run the club for more than 16 years, said it now has a tax bill of more than $147,000 from the Canada Revenue Agency for unpaid HST in the first six months of this year.

"We started to collect HST here in the store around July 28. So, for over a month now, we've actually been giving out receipts and collecting HST that we are going to remit to the government."

He said the club has about 4,000 clients who come to the small storefront on Johnson Street for medical marijuana to help treat various kinds of pain and illnesses. Read more »

BY DR. SCOTT HADLAND, THE PROVINCE

More than 40 years after U.S. President Richard Nixon launched the global "war on drugs" — with a bill to U.S. taxpayers of more than $1 trillion spent on the criminalization of drug producers, traffickers and consumers — illegal drugs remain freely available worldwide to those who seek them. Here in Canada, matters are no better. Read more »

By Mona Mattei The Castlegar Source

Grand Forks city council voted a resounding “no” to the idea of supporting the regulation and taxation of marijuana last night.

As a follow up to previous conversations at the council table about the Stop the Violence BC campaign, started by a group of B.C. mayors and law enforcement authorities to pressure provincial and federal governments to decriminalize, regulate and tax the widely used drug, Mayor Brian Taylor put the topic forward once again for a decision. Read more »