City’s plan to regulate marijuana shops is a farce

My local dry cleaner is gone, replaced by one of the more than half a dozen “medical marijuana dispensaries” within a 10-minute walk from my home.

In another neighbourhood, a friend says it’s easier to get a joint than buy a loaf of bread or a litre of milk.

At last count, Vancouver had 84 cannabis stores. There’s one block in Granville Street’s entertainment district has two.

There are so many pot shops along many of the main streets that it’s almost impossible to believe that cannabis is illegal in Canada.

Their signboards are set out on sidewalks. Their posters are on utility poles. Some run ads in weekly newspapers.

A volatile mix of marijuana and camping fuel exploded in a View Street apartment suite on Friday, the second time in a week that hash oil has caused an explosion on Vancouver Island.

Victoria firefighters arrived at the fifth-floor suite at 868 View St., near Quadra Street, about 5:30 p.m. Friday after a resident on the 11th floor called 911 to report an explosion. Firefighters were met by a man with burns to his face and body. There was no fire in the suite, but an explosion had occurred in the kitchen.

The man initially denied that he was cooking drugs, but drug paraphernalia was found at the scene, according to Victoria police.

“He was initially not forthcoming,” said watch commander Sgt. Matt Waterman.

Merle Chambers, holding sign, says medical pot plant in Whonnock is the wrong place.

The question Liisa Cormode wants answered is why, when Tantalus Labs was looking for a spot for its medical marijuana operation, the city would have put Whonnock on the list of possible locations.

“Why did somebody from the municipality recommend this site given the water issues here?”

She was referring to statements made by Dan Sutton, of Tantalus Labs earlier that Maple Ridge staff had presented the company with a half dozen locations, one of which Tantalus chose as its site for a greenhouse operation to grow medical marijuana.

VANCOUVER – More than 150 people gathered in Maple Ridge Friday to protest a proposed medical marijuana facility at 272nd Street and Bell Avenue.

They say the greenhouse would be too close to homes and schools and that the facility is going to be much bigger than the 40,000 sq ft they were initially told it would be. It appears the facility will be 115,000 sq ft.

Medical marijuana company Tantalus Labs, which is building the greenhouse, has not yet received a license from the federal government but a building permit has been approved by the City of Maple Ridge.

Broken Coast Cannabis is a medical cannabis producer on Vancouver Island, growing inside a 12,000 sq ft envelope about halfway between Nanaimo and Victoria. With 14 growing rooms on two floors, they currently produce 11 varieties in a rotating harvest schedule. 6 strains are currently available and the company plans on releasing several others in the coming months based on customer feedback for various strains and profiles.

CANNABIS CULTURE - A public hearing regarding the City of Vancouver'sproposed regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries will be held at City Hall on Wednesday, June 10, 2015, at 6 PM.

To register to speak at the hearing, members of the public can send an email to publichearing@vancouver.ca or call 604-829-4238 after 8:30 am on Friday, May 29.

Citizens have been invited to provide comments to Mayor and Council atmayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca and they will be distributed to Council in advance of the hearing.

Deep within a cedar forest in British Columbia, Dan Sutton is building what he hopes will be the most energy-efficient, high-technology greenhouse for growing cannabis. Spurred by the booming market for medical marijuana, he and a group of biologists and engineers have experimented for almost three years with digital sensors, lighting arrays, software programs and ventilators to design a greenhouse system with the lowest energy costs and highest crop yields.

“We said, ‘Let’s assume everything that’s ever been done in cannabis cultivation is wrong, and we have to build from the ground up,’” said Sutton, the 28-year-old managing director of Tantalus Labs in Vancouver.  “We have this broad realm of science that no one has been able to previously explore.”

The pristine Whistler Blackcomb resort has a message for you: butt out. As of May 30, smoking will be prohibited anywhere on Whistler Blackcomb property, including lift lines, chairlifts, gondolas, ski runs, hiking trails, valley base areas, parking lots, bike trails and all bar and restaurant locations, including patios. Photograph by: Pamela Duynstee , Coastphoto.com

The pristine Whistler Blackcomb resort has a message for you: butt out.

As of May 30, smoking will be prohibited anywhere on Whistler Blackcomb property, including lift lines, chairlifts, gondolas, ski runs, hiking trails, valley base areas, parking lots, bike trails and all bar and restaurant locations, including patios.

Making cannabis coffee is now as simple as inserting a pod and pushing a button.

In Seattle, Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop sells pods of Catapult “premium infused coffee” for $10 each. The pods work in standard, single-serve coffee makers and contain 10 mg of THC, a quantity of marijuana's active ingredient that's becoming something of a standard serving for marijuana edibles.

“I liken it to a Red Bull and vodka,” Uncle Ike’s sales manager Jennifer Lanzador said. “I had more energy, but I still had the relaxation you get from cannabis.” 

A new kind of greenhouse — designed for marijuana production and soon to be completed in Maple Ridge — is set to make the green business even greener, say the facility’s owners.

The entrepreneurs behind Tantalus Labs describe their 115,000-square-foot purpose-built cannabis greenhouse as the first of its kind in North America, with a horticultural approach they say will produce a better, more sustainable sun-grown product with a substantially-reduced energy footprint.

As marijuana moves toward the mainstream, Tantalus’ owners say now is the time for the crop to “rise out of the shadows and into the light.”