Toronto in a haze over medical marijuana dispensaries

“Caught by surprise” by the proliferation of pot shops, Toronto is looking for clarity from the federal government.

Thestar.com
May 3, 2016
By David Rider

Toronto lawmakers watching medical marijuana shops pop up “like crocuses in spring” are hoping for signals from Ottawa on how to deal with the onslaught.

“We need a sign from the federal government - are they going to change the rules around medical marijuana? Should we as council be trying to close these clinics altogether or make new rules around where they can go, how close they can be to each other?” asked Councillor Paula Fletcher.

“We’ve been caught by surprise by the proliferation of these shops. People don’t like to wake up and find they live in one big marijuana dispensary and I don’t blame them.”

Star reporters last week visited dispensaries where clients are required to show a prescription and others where a conversation with a “health professional” is enough to walk out with a bag of pot.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s vow to legalize recreational use has left a haze around Health Canada rules, as has a court decision on patients growing their own plants. The rules say only federally-licensed producers can distribute pot, by delivery, to prescription-holding patients.

Toronto’s licensing department told the Star it is laying groundwork for a future crackdown. A city rule states pot dispensaries must be federally licensed and located only in areas zoned industrial.

Fletcher, who says a half-dozen dispensaries are now located around a subway station in her Riverdale ward, is wary of marshalling city staff, police and courts in an enforcement blitz that might be made moot by legalization.

“There’s a better, compassionate way” to dispense medical pot than Health Canada’s much-criticized system, said Fletcher.

“It’s like Uber - we need to regulate and find a solution that works for the city. Five or six shops in one area does not work for anybody.

“What’s really clear is it’s a multi-gazillion-dollar industry, to have so many shops open up like crocuses in spring. If we’re legalizing, we need to make sure taxpayers benefit.”

Vancouver, which first felt the weed wave, passed restrictions on dispensaries. It is now fining those that ignored the rules - such as being within 300 metres of schools, while granting operating licences to others.

Some shops the broke the rules have closed while others are threatening legal challenges on the basis they are overly restrictive and unjustifiable.

Olga Fowell, a Forest Hill realtor and mom, is fed up with four dispensaries that have sprang up near her home at Eglinton Ave. W. and Avenue Rd.

She wants Toronto to crack down now and come up with regulations later, and is frustrated that public health seems unwilling to act.

“I’m not saying ‘No to drugs;’ I’m saying you need rules,” Fowell said. “I can’t have my kids around all these shops.”

Councillor Joe Cressy, chair of Toronto’s Drug Strategy Implementation Panel, is calling on Ottawa to work with cities to craft a framework for legalization, including new rules for medicinal pot.

In the meantime, the federal medicinal pot rules are “enforceable” by city licensing, Cressy said in a statement.

When told in an email that its medicinal marijuana rules are being ignored, and asked if any changes are coming, a Health Canada spokesman replied: “Dispensaries and other sellers of marijuana who are not licensed under the current law are illegal.

“Questions about enforcement of federal regulations in this area should be addressed to local law enforcement.”