DA KINE FOLLIES SYMBOLIZE OUR IMPOTENT POT POLICIES

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 the last two weeks.

Hundreds of hours of police time, lots of media coverage, police and
politicians running to and fro, all for a small store that's committed
the crime of openly selling marijuana.

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

But 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 the police to do something.

Which, or course, 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
about two weeks ago. Customers had to say they needed the drug for
medicinal reasons, but the rules were, shall we say, relaxed.

So the reporters asked police what they knew, and what they were going
to do.

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.
As long as nobody gets too upset, they had other issues to worry about.

But then 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, the 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. If it keeps making
news, the police will probably have to arrest some more people. It's a
bizarre little story, and 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 that is virtually
certain to attract people keen on supplying it. The tougher
enforcement efforts against them, the higher the profits for those who
are successful, the more people who enter the business, and the more
likely organized crime becomes involved. (See the U.S. attempt at
alcohol prohibition, and the rise of big-time gangsters.)

Arresting the staff of the Da Kine cafe didn't even shut down the
store, let alone make a dent in the marijuana supply. 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 who
are 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.