Last Wednesday, October 4th, the Comox Valley RCMP raided Leaf Compassion, a medical marijuana dispensary that was operating illegally and without a business licence.
But ever since the store was shut down, Courtenay’s mayor Larry Jangula has been receiving death threats and similarly aggressive voicemails from irate residents in the area.
“Prohibition with marijuana shouldn’t have been started in the first place and a**holes like you that want to keep it going should be f**ing shot,” said one caller, in a voicemail that Jangula shared with CTV News.
Apparently there had been false rumours online stating that the mayor had ordered the raid on the dispensary, even though (as he pointed out to CTV News) the mayor of a city does not have “the power and the authority to tell the RCMP who they should investigate and what they should do…”
The mayor stated that the RCMP is now investigating the threats.
Because legalization is just around the corner, enforcing bylaws related to running dispensaries have largely been delegated to municipalities and individual police forces, which may explain some of the cause for confusion.
However, the official statement, as reiterated by Const. Rob Gardner (Comox Valley RCMP media relations officer), remains, “There is no legal mechanism in Canada which allows for ‘medicinal marijuana dispensaries’ or ‘compassion clubs’ to sell marijuana to the public, regardless of whether or not the purchasing individual(s) have licenses to possess marijuana or whether or not the vendor has a license to produce marijuana,”
