Vancouver dispensary owners are anxious about the federal government’s plan to legalize recreational marijuana but confident the process will eventually be to their benefit.

“We’ve sat with the federal task force and apparently made some really good impressions there,” Jeremy Jacob, president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries (CAMCD), told the Georgia Straight.

“Anne McLellan, the chair of the task force, she spent three hours at the Vancouver Compassion Club,” Jacob recounted. “And she came out saying, ‘How are we going to regulate these shops?’ And according to Mark Ware, the vice chair, he said that certain members of the task force had life-changing experiences while visiting dispensaries.”

Last June, Health Minister Jane Philpott announced that the Liberal government will table legislation to legalize and regulate the distribution and sale of recreational marijuana in the spring of 2017. For Vancouver storefronts selling cannabis—which remain illegal under federal law but are regulated by the...