DA KINE FOLLIES A SYMBOL FOR OUR POT POLICIES

VICTORIA - It's hard to see the people who run the Da Kine pot shop as
criminal masterminds.

The little store on Vancouver's Commercial Drive has been the city's
most famous site for two weeks. Hundreds of hours of police time, lots
of media, police and politicians running to and fro, all for a small
store that's committed the crime of selling marijuana.

No doubt it was a good business, especially once the media told
everybody about the opportunity. When police-30 of them-finally raided
Da Kine, they scooped up $63,000.

Despite the cash, Da Kine looks mostly like disorganized crime. If the
goal was big profits, they could have quietly kept on selling.
Instead, the store operators embraced the publicity, and pretty much
dared police to do something. They did.

The whole weird saga says something about our doomed war on
marijuana.

The story broke that Da Kine was selling over-the-counter marijuana
two weeks ago. Customers had to say they needed the drug for medicinal
reasons, but the rules were, shall we say, relaxed.

We know they're selling marijuana, said Vancouver police. And we're
not going to do anything, because-in case you haven't looked around
lately-Vancouver has bigger crime problems.

Vancouver city councillors mostly expressed the same ho-hum
attitude.

But Da Kine kept making the news. Solicitor General Rich Coleman said
he was sure police would act. Vancouver politicians started getting a
little more worried.

Instead of quietly skirting the law, Da Kine operators were making
police look like they weren't doing their jobs. So they did, scooping
up half-a-dozen people. The next day the store was open for business
again.

It's a bizarre little story, one that shows just how muddled our
approach to marijuana has become. Marijuana possession is a crime,
sort of, at least until Paul Martin changes the law. Selling marijuana
is a crime, but not one ordinarily of high police interest unless you
work at attracting their attention.

The confusion is understandable, since police and prosecutors are in
an impossible position. One in six B.C. adults, according to StatsCan,
used marijuana in the last 12 months. That's more than half-a-million
people, too many to arrest.

Those people are also a significant market, one virtually certain to
attract people keen on supplying it. The tougher enforcement efforts
against them, the higher the profits for those who are successful, and
the more likely organized crime becomes involved. (See the U.S.
attempt at alcohol Prohibition, and the rise of big-time gangsters.)

There was no real alternative to raiding Da Kine, given the operators'
provocations. But there is an opportunity to rethink our overall
approach to marijuana.

In a perfect world, few would choose to use a drug to alter their
reality-not marijuana, or alcohol, or crystal meth.

But we do, and that leaves three challenges. We need to make sure
people, especially young people, get an accurate understanding of the
risks of all drugs.

We need to have adequate support for people dealing with drug
problems.

And we need to come up with an effective enforcement
approach.

Rushing around ripping up grow ops-or raiding a store-accomplishes
nothing. The marijuana supply isn't reduced; organized criminals are
only inconvenienced; drug use is unaffected.

And what is the point of that?

Footnote

What are the alternatives?

If the aim is organized crime, then come up with more money for law
enforcement. The now-defunct Organized Crime Agency of B.C. has
complained that a budget freeze left it unable to do its job.

For a more radical approach, simply legalize possession of a few
marijuana plants. The commercial grow op business would wither away.

Paul Willcocks, a freelance journalist in Victoria, writes weekly
for The Peace Arch News.