Pot raids aren’t political, just a matter of law

Marijuana dispensaries had become the new dollar stores.

Just as ubiquitous around the city, just as slapdash in their inventory, just as fill-your-cart accessible to anybody with a few bucks in their pocket. And not necessarily a medical prescription to go with.

That may be the nirvana normal as envisioned by pot activists but it’s surely not what the federal government had in mind when Health Minister Jane Philpott announced Canada would legalize recreational cannabis within a year. Though we don’t actually know what the Liberals are contemplating or how they will roll out commercial availability, except I bet it will be a bureaucratic monster.

Frankly, the pop-up dispensaries — entrepreneurs getting a freewheeling jump on the presumed dope marketplace, their numbers doubled since March — remind me of the sex parlours galore that infested Toronto in the late ’70s, brought to heel only after the murder of a 12-year-old shoeshine boy.

Many yesterdays ago, that was. But for a time, the city was unrecognizable, a rub-a-dub Pottersville where the squish joints actually operated as bawdy houses, prostitution on the in/out hoof.

Obviously I’m not saying that marijuana profiteers are akin to pimps. But they’re not virtuous humanitarians providing a public service either. They are, as witnessed by the police chief’s chaotic press conference Friday, a loudmouthed, belligerent and bullying bunch who reject the apparently quaint notion that criminal laws should apply to them. And they’ve drawn vigour from the tacitly lawless environment that has been created by Ottawa’s pre-decriminalization stasis.

As federal legislation stands, there is no such thing as a legal marijuana dispensary. There are only a few dozen government-licensed distributors permitted to deliver — by mail order, specifically — cannabis to approved medical patients. (A federal court order in February struck down the prohibition on individuals growing their own medical pot for personal use.)

The system in place is clumsy and inconvenient. It also created an oligopoly. On the positive side, it provided a means for quality control for medical patients. Establishing a content baseline for THC, among other components, is a reasonable requirement, whether for medical pot or the legal recreational pot of the future.

Chief Mark Saunders stressed that issue in justifying the impetus behind Project Claudia, Thursday’s “low-energy” sweep of clearly illegal dispensaries around Toronto.

“Project Claudia is not an attack on lawful production, distribution or purchasing of marijuana for medical purposes.” Pointing to the array of products that had been seized from 43 locations raided — 279 kilograms of dried marijuana, 24 kilos of hash, 30 kilos of cannabis resin, 27 kilos of marijuana and THC pills in oil and capsule form, and a massive amount of “edibles,” the 142 kilograms of cookies, 129 kilos of candies, soda and jams and lollipops — Saunders added: “There is no quality control on these products and, as you can see, they’re marketed in a way to disguise the unknown and unregulated amount of THC in the products . . .’’

Half of the dispensaries were situated within 300 metres of a school. Even in liberal-minded jurisdictions such as Vancouver, bylaws forbid dispensaries that operate under local bylaws — and all such bylaws would ultimately be overtaken by what the feds devise in their decriminalization/legalization objective — from situating in proximity to schools, recreational centres and other places where easily influenced youth gather.

“This is not about the charges, this is about public safety, that’s what my concern is,” said Saunders, as he was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers.

They want what they want. How they want. Where they want.

They don’t give a rat’s ass about the teenage kids you, as parents or guardians, are trying to steer clear of recreational drugs because they do, in fact, affect hugely on learning, on truancy, on peer pressure that shunts young lives off the rails. That is not an exaggeration. If you don’t have kids, you have no idea about the daily challenges of child rearing in a society bombarded by destructive messages and seductive enticements.

Residents have been appalled by the encroachment of “dispensaries” in their neighbourhoods. Their complaints triggered Project Claudia. “These complaints were substantive in nature,” said Steve Watts, acting inspector with the Toronto drug squad. “Petitions and in excess of 50 and 70 people, just to give you an idea of the kind of complaints that were coming forward in relation to these unlawful storefront dispensaries.”

Twenty-two grams of powder cocaine seized at one location.

But the evangelists of pot will countenance no restraints, no moderation restrictions. Oh, they’ve got a snootful of chutzpah now. Not so mild-mannered and hazy of mood either. In-your-face defiant. They wilfully ignored the warnings issued on May 18 that raids were imminent. Letters sent by the city’s licensing and standards department to all dispensary operators, explaining violations of zoning bylaws that could, would, result in charges.

Blow it out your wazoo was the response. I suspect they relished it, this moment of their contrived victimhood — St. Maryjane Among the Martyrs — seizing the platform of a press conference with legions of media present.

“This is worse than anything we saw under the Harper government!’’ harangued Jodie Emery, longtime pot activist and married to Mark Emery, Canada’s so-called Prince of Pot. “I think Canadians should immediately call Justin Trudeau, John Tory and Bill Blair and ask why we’re seeing more people being harmed under their so-called legalization than we ever saw under Stephen Harper’s anti-marijuana policies. This is about protecting the corporate profits of stock-market businesses who have sent police to arrest people to protect their own financial interest. That is sick and disgusting and despicable. Shame on the Toronto Police Service and shame on the Toronto city government for harming peaceful people.”

Pooh to 50 or so complainants, she insisted, compared to “50,000 sick people last night who were stressed and sick and their doctors say, no, I won’t give you medical marijuana.

“These dispensaries do no harm. The police are the biggest gang of guns that went and shut down peaceful businesses.”

Spare me. If there’s a genuine scam afoot, it’s the number of individuals who’ve secured legal marijuana prescriptions for bogus medical conditions. The last Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey published by Health Canada (in 2011) pegged the estimated number of medical marijuana users at 420,000. But they will insist on conflating the medical users with the recreational users, clinging to coattails of legality.

None of Thursday’s raids were targeted at disrupting legal marijuana distributors or consumers with a medical prescription.

“In no way, shape or form did we look at or consider arresting people for possession,” Saunders said. “This is strictly for those people that are trafficking in narcotics.’’

Until Ottawa legalizes pot, that’s what you are, folks — traffickers, no different from the gangbanger peddling crack in the park. Chasing the money. Blow that out your selfrighteous bong. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.