MAYOR MEETS WITH POT DISPENSARY SOCIETY

If the mayor of Maple Ridge had his way, marijuana would regulated and taxed.

"In Ernie's perfect world, it would be dispensed from a pharmacy just
like all other medicine," said Ernie Daykin, after a meeting Tuesday
with the director of the Always Growing Green Society, Michael
Joinson, and marijuana activists Dana Larsen and Jacob Hunter.

The sit-down with Daykin and district staff was organized after The
Always Growing Green Society opened Taggs Medical Cannabis Dispensary
on 224th Street, without warning, last week.

The dispensary serves patients who use medical marijuana to treat
illnesses ranging from epilepsy, glaucoma, severe pain from multiple
sclerosis, spinal cord injury or disease, as well as pain, weight
loss and nausea from cancer or HIV/AIDS infection.

All members of the dispensary must have documentation from Health
Canada or a registered physician to use its services.

Daykin called the meeting "cordial" and learned how cannabis
dispensaries work in Vancouver, where there are three, with a fourth
set to open in the city's West End next week.

But Daykin still has questions about Taggs and is awaiting a report
from district legal staff before he decides whether the dispensary
should remain open or shut down.

"We need to look at what the outcome of all our research is," he
added. "We are not heartless. We are the ones who are closest to the
action. We get the phone calls and we have no way of regulating it."

Taggs is the seventh medical marijuana outlet to open in B.C. In just
a week, it had a roster of 32 members.

It sells a variety of strains of cannabis, as well as other cannabis
products, such as baked goods and other edibles, extracts, oils,
tinctures, capsules, and sprays.

While Health Canada allows people to possess or grow pot for medical
use, there's no provision for selling it - technically, anyone who's
doing so could be charged with trafficking.

Joinson, who uses medical marijuana to treat a back injury, called
the meeting with the mayor "positive."

"We want to be a benefit to the community, make it better, not
worse," said Joinson, who informed the mayor about the club's rules
and regulations as well as its future plans.

He added that any money the non-profit society takes in will be put
back into the community.

"Everything sounded good. It was really positive," Joinson said of
the meeting with the mayor.

"The main thing is that people don't understand it. We are letting
anybody come in and see what we do."