Health Minister Rona Ambrose sends letter to mayor, warning dispensaries are illegal. 

OTTAWA -- The federal government drew battle lines with the City of Vancouver Thursday over the city’s plans to regulate marijuana dispensaries, saying they are dangerously close to legitimizing an illegal substance.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government said municipal governments have no authority to regulate and license businesses that sell pot.

“I am deeply concerned by reports that the City of Vancouver intends to discuss a proposal to regulate illegal drug dispensaries at an upcoming council meeting,” Health Minister Rona Ambrose told Mayor Gregor Robertson in a letter.

Sixty per cent of Vancouver’s marijuana businesses violate city hall’s proposed rules that they not be located within 300 metres of each other, and more than a third are too close to a school or community centre, an analysis by The Sun shows.

The proposed rules could eliminate 25 per cent of Vancouver’s 80 marijuana-related businesses, predicts the city, and will not “grandfather in” the existing shops. While many of the owners are grateful the city is trying to regulate the industry, nearly all are worried about the future of their locations and hope the rules will be tweaked after some consultation.

A former Health Canada manager who helped Canadians navigate the sometimes hazy world of medical marijuana access has been appointed CEO of an emerging company that educates patients on its use.

Gulwant Bajwa, 53, has taken on the lead role at National Access Cannabis (NAC), an alternative treatment care centre that first opened in Victoria with new locations slated to open across the country this year. The company will open its first Ottawa location in Hintonburg in June.

During Bajwa’s four years working with Health Canada’s medical marijuana program, he investigated its impact on patients suffering with ailments such as fibromyalgia, arthritis and cancer.

Organizer dodge permit costs by insisting it’s not an event or festival 

Vancouver’s annual 4/20 rally has evolved into a giant farmer’s market for marijuana and attracts tens of thousands of people. So why don’t the organizers have to go through the city’s official permitting process?

According to a city spokesman, officials have repeatedly suggested that organizers obtain a special event permit to hold the gathering at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but to no avail. Despite the increasingly commercial flavour of the day, the rally is still considered a protest, and not an event.

The Global Marijuana March (GMM) is kicking off at different locations across the world taking place this year on Saturday May 2, 2015 and include marches, meetings, rallies, concerts, festivals and other relevant information and events relating to cannabis.

The Global Marijuana March began in 1999 which have had hundreds of thousands of people participated in over 829 different cities in 72 countries worldwide since its inception.

The Global Marijuana March is a celebration embracing cannabis culture as a personal lifestyle choice. Participants unite to discuss, promote, entertain and educate both consumers and non-consumers alike.

Ross' Gold, a division of Green and Hill Industries Inc today announced that its ecommerce website is now live and selling the first of the Ross GoldGlass line of products. Ross' Gold Glass is designed, produced and distributed by West Coast Gifts under an exclusive license granted by Ross' Gold.

Vancouver is about to become the first city in Canada where the business of selling marijuana will be regulated and permitted.

Although the drug is illegal in Canada and technically only available to people by a mail order, prescription system set up by the federal government, the city will permit the operation of dispensaries under a proposed framework that selects which businesses can open and imposes rigid operating conditions.

The proposed regulatory framework, which will take months to implement and still needs council approval, reflects a permissive view by the Vision Vancouver majority that supports access to marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The City of Vancouver's plan to regulate retail marijuana stores has raised the ire of Ottawa.

In a letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson, federal health minister, Rona Ambrose, says she is "deeply concerned" at the city's plan to discuss a proposal to regulate the growing crop of pot shops.

The letter, sent Thursday, says that "legitimizing and normalizing the use and sale of marijuana can have only one effect: increasing marijuana use and addiction."

The professional organization that regulates the conduct of B.C. doctors is cracking down on how patients access medicinal marijuana, and some MDs in the province are not happy about it.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Ian Mitchell, a Kamloops-based physician and clinical associate professor at UBC, described the new rules as “excessive” and “beyond Health Canada requirements”.

“This is very restrictive and a big change from the past,” he told the Georgia Straight. “These new regulations make it almost impossible for anybody to comply with them.”

Patients using and doctors recommending medical marijuana have begun to see the changes from two recent Provincial Colleges of Physicians guidelines released this March.

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia both released updated standards and guidelines for medical professionals in March highlighting issues like caps on ‘prescribed’ THC levels, recommendations for users under 25, and whether doctors can charge patients or producers for a’medical document’.