cbc

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 LOUISE DICKSON, TIMES COLONIST

A Victoria woman who suffers from chronic pain told a court Wednesday that her family doctor refused to help her obtain approval from Health Canada to use medical marijuana.

"She was against it. She said 'I don't want to be a drug dealer,' " Sandra Large testified from her wheelchair at Owen Edward Smith's trafficking trial in B.C. Supreme Court.

"It made me angry. I think a doctor's purpose is to help patients."

Smith, 29, the head baker for the Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada, has launched a constitutional challenge against Health Canada's medical-marijuana access regulations.

He was charged on Dec. 3, 2009, with possession for the purpose of trafficking THC and unlawful possession of marijuana after the manager of an apartment building complained to police about a strong smell wafting through the building. Police obtained a search warrant and discovered that the suite was being used as a bakery. Officers recovered substantial quantities of cannabis-infused olive and grapeseed oils, as well as pot cookies, destined for sale through the club. Read more »

By Diane Walsh, Pacific Free Press   To any rational person, the consequences on society of bad drug policy are obvious. Writing in the Toronto Star’s June 3, 2009, issue, Victoria police officer David Bratzer cites “public disorder, backlogged courts, high property crime rates, organized crime and gang violence over control of the drug trade” to try to awake the public to realize that “these costs are not worth an absolute prohibition on drug use in our society”.