Do you support the Robson Square pot market arrests?

10 Comments

  • @ Rob - 6 years ago

    Sorry, pal, you're not a "MJ supporter." Cannabis is not "liquor, prescription drugs or cigarettes," so the rules for those are inapplicable. Cannabis has been used much longer than tobacco, prescription drugs or liquor. Distillation is comparatively young compared with cannabis. Cannabis has been used for thousands of years, cannabis is used as a foodstuff by all sorts of animals! It's a vegetable.

    In the old days, you learned about cannabis from your friends, who also taught you the customs of our people. You learned that violence isn't cool, that you smell the herb before you buy it, etc. I will never buy cannabis in a sealed, excise-stamped package. I can't smell it first? That's not customary.

    Now we have newcomers who are used to dispensaries. Dispensaries were only ever a necessary evil. And some of these dispensaries have now started paying protection to the City, so that they can be the only game in town, maintain their silly $10/gram price point. Legal like coffee or carrots means cannabis is pennies a gram.

    And then there's the harm reduction being offered. I've visited several dispensaries, if you want to see "Drug dealers," dispensaries are full of people who are not really passionate about the issue, they're just trying to make a buck, not that that's a sin or anything. But the people at the market, and I've actually spoke with a majority of them, are passionate activists who are challenging an unjust federal train that's rolling down the tracks, which is going to hurt everyone who can't or won't buy a permit.

    What's on offer is not legalization: it's corporatization. It's Prohibition 2.0. Legalization means, if it means anything, that cannabis is treated as it was before statutes started mentioning cannabis. We can grow as much as we want and sell as much as we want. And in the common square we can also sell it, because the common square belongs to everyone, not to any corporation like CITY OF VANCOUVER. That's just a fiction.

  • Rob - 6 years ago

    Even as an MJ supporter I totally agree with the shut down. MJ users are getting what they wanted legalized weed, that should be considered a win but there is a small culture of users that think they can just smoke or sell whenever and wherever they want. This notion is rubbish, liquor, prescription drugs or cigarettes can't be sold under these circumstances why should they expect MJ to be any different.

  • Wally - 6 years ago

    It’s not legal. Shut it down. Potheads have no consideration For the law. The majority of people know it’s not right. Just look at the poll results. It’s sickening that the squeaky minority always get the grease. Just who do these people think they are. Show a little respect and be a law abiding citizen for once

  • Sean - 6 years ago

    The silent majority of us, who live and legitimately work jn the area, don't want these losers setting up their illegal shops anywhere near our communities. They are defiant, disrespectful and caused mayham in the area. Thank you for getting rid of them! Good riddance!

  • Voter - 6 years ago

    Will there be a sun poll on Canada's legalization of cannabis, yes/no ?

  • M. Oral Majority - 6 years ago

    This is what "Legalization" is going to be---sure, it might not be in the public square, because the cannabis family will be too terrorized to be free, to share their herb in public. This is just what the cops did to the hippies in the 70s, the Grass Town Riot. They're bringing out mounted troops? They did that in the 70s when the hippies wouldn't "fall in line" because the hippies knew that written law is garbage. Oral law is what we are governed by in America. Writing is a Eurasian invention, it has no currency in America, except by the violent imposition of the Colonists.

    Law is always a treaty negotiation. There are no permanent treaties. And who would accept a treaty that says you can only carry 30g of flowers, you can't sell flowers without a degree/permit issued by a corporation? That's really what this is: permits and degrees are broadly similar entities, so it's a corporate takeover. Only people with Corporate Papers will be allowed to sell pot or carry more than 30g. Or grow more than 4 plants.

    The corporatists know that if pot were legal, guys like me would grow pounds of the stuff and _give it away_. I love potlatch. Potlatch is how you show you're Free. You have been so blessed that you have stuff to give away! But I'm a native american, so I know people think I must be stupid. You'd give stuff away to prove you're free? I know a really great guy, colonist family, he thinks "money is freedom." Money isn't freedom. Freedom is a natural power, given to us by our creator.

    On to the specific arguments. The market is unquestionably a direct-action harm reduction service. I have spoken with many of the young, street-identified people who frequent the area. Many of the have gotten off of or minimized their use of hard drugs like meth. The police are attacking because they know that economically disadvantaged people cannot afford lawyers. They don't dare do criminal raids on the dispensaries, because it would lead to a huge constitutional precedent.

    But they have something better than lawyers. They have free spirits. The police are trying to steal the spirit of freedom with which they have been blessed, to replace it with a spirit of submission and obedience.

    A year or so ago, at Green College, UBC, retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell said, if I heard him correctly, that in Canada, if you are poor, there is "no access to Justice." Canada has a great justice system, if you are rich. A serious constitutional challenge takes a six figure legal warchest, because you're not just arguing at the Superior Court level, you're arguing at the Appeal and Supreme Court level, potentially. Even the people who think these guys are walking away with "fat stacks of cash," sure, they might have a few thousand in pocket, how much of that is money they owe to a supplier who fronted them a pound or two?

    This is poor-bashing of the worse kind. The coverage of this issue has been sensational. You could no longer get away with covering aboriginal people, homosexuals, feminists, etc. in this way. Poor street kids and drug users? Go ahead, it's not like they can afford lawyers. Not saying the Sun in particular has been ham-fisted, but some of the coverage, and these allegations about cocaine---if cocaine in trafficking quantity were seized, you can bet that would be front and centre. All we have are "reports" about cocaine being sold. So where's the evidence? Where's the analysis? Public relations is all this is.

  • J - 6 years ago

    4 hours time with 2 cops is b.s we are talking about the gang units 6 week project they say they spent 6 weeks on it and it was a little more then two cops i wonder how many of the "supposed " 50 officers working the east van shotting where part of this undercover police operatoins cost tons of money more then u think i beg the public to ask how much money this project cost to run for 6 weeks bet it $50,000 plus these cops should have been chasing murders not pot heads the only reason this ever got to this point is because ctvs office is right there and it offend some stuck up office folk maybe ctv should move down to hasting or broadway area then maybe they can pressure cops into addressing real crime . Hasting open drug market is way worse then robson square but you cant see that from ctvs office so thats not big news i think the protest should be moved to ctv front door watch the pop up protest rise around this city and others now

  • James oldham - 6 years ago

    It doesn't make any sense to allow open air pot sales when alcohol is so tightly controlled. In my mind the two are essentially the same and we wouldn't want alcohol being sold in Robson Square.

  • S - 6 years ago

    We already have 90-100 store front dispensaries operating in this city, so please try and tell me why we need unlicensed and unregulated vendors operating in public places. Yes, forcing them to pack up and leave and arresting repeat violators is easily worth 4 hours of 2 cops time. No, vendors here cannot claim to be performing a social service by providing a lower price point on weed because you simply can get it for $5/gram from some dispensaries. Shop around. Shut ‘em down.

  • J - 6 years ago

    I think what vpd has done is a joke gangs are killing each other and innocent people and this is a priority the money and time wasted on this project has taken money and police away from chasing the people killing shotting the eastside up period dave has helped so many of these kids get off meth and his crew has cleared the meth heads from 800 block on Granville better then cops ever have good job vpd and our mayor

Leave a Comment

0/4000 chars


Submit Comment