A new study pegs the retail market for cannabis at a half-billion dollars per year in B.C. alone. (Photo: eggrole via Flickr)

The British Columbia government is missing out by not regulating and taxing the $500 million of cannabis that is sold locally each year, according to a study published Tuesday in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

The study — a collaborative effort between the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University – derived its estimates of domestic consumption of the drug from provincial surveys of users and RCMP crime data.

“The results demonstrate how cannabis is such a highly lucrative and reliable source of income for organized crime and that a regulated system in B.C. could generate significant tax revenue for services that actually address community health and safety,” said Dr. Evan Wood, director at the BC Centre for Excellence, a senior author of the study and a founding member of Stop the Violence BC.

Stop the Violence is a coalition of law-enforcement and health-care professionals, academics and politicians who encourage informed debate about drug policy in B.C. The group supports the regulation and taxation of cannabis as a method of harm reduction.

The study says organized crime controlled 85 per cent of the B.C. cannabis market in 2001, the last year of available data. It also noted that more of the province’s murders – up from 21 per cent of the total in 1997 to 34 per cent in 2009, according to RCMP data — are attributed to organized-crime groups, who get a big part of their revenue from drug operations.

From Washington with love

The Journal report comes at a turbulent point in the history of the cannabis debate in B.C.  Colorado and Washington voted Nov. 6 on referenda to legalize the drug, the first two states to do so. The Canadian federal government has long argued that a change to drug policy here would be impossible without a change in U.S. policy.

That is going to prompt change, says Kash Heed, a Liberal MLA, former solicitor general, and Stop the Violence supporter.

“With … Washington state and … Colorado[’s votes, it] puts those two states in my opinion further left than the Netherlands.  They’ve gone to where no one in the world has ventured at this particular time.”

Heed is joined by Sensible B.C. founder, Dana Larsen, in suggesting that the U.S. vote signals a sea change in the debate in Canada. Sensible B.C. is an advocacy group committed to seeking legalization of cannabis.

Larsen, who is presently on a tour of the province to rally support for a September 2013 referendum vote on the issue, contends that there is a “real misconception [that only federal leaders can effect change] … that’s promoted by our political leaders because they want to pass the buck rather than take a stand.”

Dr. Evan Wood, a founding member of Stop the Violence BC. (Photo: BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS)

A way around the feds

One way for the province of B.C. to get around existing federal drug legislation would be to seek a Section 56 exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That’s the exemption that permits Insite, the Downtown Eastside safe supervised injection site, to operate.

This exemption applies to research trials and, in Insite’s case, allows drug consumption to occur without triggering criminal charges.  Wood, who is also the founding principal investigator for Insite, suggested such an exemption would be worth considering. It would amount to a research trial in cannabis regulation and taxation.

A dissenting opinion

But Darryl Plecas, SFU criminology professor and provincial Liberal candidate hopeful for Abbotsford South, believes that simple legalization of the drug will not reduce gang violence, or even gang-activity related to cannabis.

“A very small part of what’s produced in B.C. actually stays here,” said Plecas.  “The vast majority, at least 80 per cent of marijuana produced in B.C., is exported. The notion that organized crime is going to vanish is ridiculous.”

Plecas’ assertion that the domestic market is dwarfed by exports is supported by a 2004 Fraser Institute study of the B.C. cannabis industry, which quantified the total value of cannabis produced in the province at between $2 billion and $7 billion per year. That study author, Stephen Easton, also said the majority of the cannabis produced goes out of B.C.

Plecas believes policy should focus on education about the health risks of cannabis to help reduce consumption.  Failing that, he asserted that one-off legalization won’t reduce organized crime’s involvement with the cannabis trade – but that full legalization in both Canada and the U.S. may.

Authors of the Journal study are careful to point out that their sole focus was on quantifying the size of the domestic cannabis market, not conducting an overall cost-benefit analysis of full government regulation, administration and taxation.

Neither the provincial nor federal governments have responded to the study.

History of Canadian Drug and Alcohol Policy

NPA's Sean Bickerton was attacked 28 years ago.

Twenty-eight years ago, two men attacked 27-year-old Bickerton on Davie Street as he walked home after a night of dancing. They beat him unconscious in the parking lot in front of Shoppers Drug Mart.

“I woke up in the emergency room as they were stitching up my face,” says Bickerton. “The police told me I should consider myself lucky.” Back then, he added, the term “gay bashing” wasn’t even around.

Despite subsequent efforts to address incidents of gay bashing, Bickerton said that he doesn’t think they’re enough. “I appreciate the added resources but there needs to be a very visible and targeted program,” he said.

The gay-bashing capital

According to Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada, a study of anti-gay violence by Douglas Victor Janoff published in 2005, the Vancouver Police Department began actively working on targeting gay bashings in 1997.

That year, the VPD opened an office off Davie Street, now known as the West End-Coal Harbour Community Policing center. The police also set up drop-in hours at the West End Community Centre.

But Vancouver went on to be dubbed Canada’s gay bashing capital after statistics showed that in 2008 it had 34 reported incidents of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation, the highest per-capita ratio in the country.

Related: Q&A: Gordon Price, Vancouver’s first openly gay city councillor

And incidents of gay bashing in the West End continue. Just last month, Travis James Johnston was assaulted on Davie Street while walking home with friends after a night at the pub.

According to Spencer Chandra Herbert, the MLA for Vancouver-West End, more uniformed and plainclothes officers have, in fact, been put on the streets of the neighbourhood, starting with last year’s Vancouver Pride Parade & Festival.

“Perhaps Bickerton hasn’t spent a lot of time in the neighborhood,” he said. Bickerton lived in the West End for two and a half years, from 1982-1983 and in 2007; he currently lives in the International Village.

John Bates, a West End resident since 1973, said that he hasn’t noticed that there are more police in the neighbourhood. “I only see the police when they drive by in their cars,” he said. “You could be the biggest crook in Vancouver and they wouldn’t know.”

Bates said that he would welcome more foot patrols, as putting police on the ground means that they get to know the residents.

Second attempt

This is Bickerton’s second bid to be elected to the city council; he ran unsuccessfully in 2008. The move to increase the police presence in David Village, part of his platform for public safety, would be funded through the VPD’s budget.

“No new funds are needed; it would just be a reprioritization,” he said. However, he did not specify exactly who or what in the Vancouver Police Department would get their funding cut.

An early Friday night in Davie Village.

When Mayor Gregor Robertson was asked recently about his plans to deal with gay bashing, he said he wanted to increase the VPD’s budget to hire more 30 police officers.

These officers would be used to create metro teams, which would target trouble hot spots around the city.

Curt Allison, minister at the St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church and West End resident, thinks Vancouver’s a progressive city when it comes to gay rights.

“But gay bashing still happens,” he said, “right here in Gayville.”

Allison said he is not sure how the issue of gay bashing should be solved, but that for him — and many of his friends –  when it comes to choosing a candidate to vote for in the municipal election, it’s an important one.

Related: NPA candidate wants more police in Davie Village

Q: During your years as a city councillor, what was done to curb gay bashing?

A: Nothing that I can recall. No issue rises to my mind. If something did happen, it would have been referred to the police board, which has regulatory power.

Q: How do you think gay bashing should be prevented?

A: Through equal parts social change, on the municipal level and through a new generation.

Q: There’s been a proposal to put more police foot patrols in Davie Village during the weekends. What do you think about it?

A: People like the idea of having cops on the beat. But the moment that the police has to write a report or file a paper, they’re off the streets. All it takes is a single 911 call and the police could be off for hours. There is no social change by having more police on the beat. Also, from the police’s point of view, it tends not to last very long. The police say “We have to do this until the pressure is off.” It’s all about politics and perception — and addressing a long-term problem exactly around election time.

Q: Being openly gay and a politician, what was the reaction when you decided to run for city council?

A: The first question I got asked when I announced my candidacy was how me being gay would impact my chances of getting elected. I had worked with AIDS Vancouver and was already known as a gay person. I told the reporters I didn’t think it would affect me and ended up getting elected six times to city council.

Q: How did the gay community react to you being elected?

A: They couldn’t get their heads around it, me being a member of the NPA. People don’t expect gay people to come from the right. While I was in city council, there were several city councillors who were gay or lesbians, predominantly from right-centre parties. It didn’t line up with the preconceived idea of gays in politics. I was a politician who happened to be gay, not a gay who happened to be into politics.

FreshSlice Pizza’s owner, Hamid Khogi, wants to see more police officers suppressing the sale of underground cheese downtown.

The label above the cheese shelves at Nesters Grocery contains a simple instruction: “Grab and Go.” Recently, some consumers have been taking this suggestion a little too literally.

Cheese is a major contender this year for the title of most frequently stolen item in Vancouver grocery outlets, though razor blades and deli meats remain high on shoplifting lists.

Cheese thieving, driven by voracious black market demand, remains a major concern for local food retailers and is prompting security overhauls at stores across the downtown core.

“It’s a big commodity,” said Darryl Booth, manager of a Yaletown grocery store. “It’s easier to sell off cheese, and it’s easier to take six, eight, 10 blocks of cheese, than it is to grab a couple roasts.”

Retail cheese is easily transportable, pre-packaged and not immediately perishable, making it an appealingly pocketable item for the light-fingered folk.

Edible overhead

From Jarlsberg smoked Norwegian Baby Swiss to wheels of cheddar 12 inches in diameter, black market cheese is in high demand.

“Restaurants or pizza shops are usually the buyers of this stuff,” said Dave Jones, security consultant with the Downtown Vancouver BIA and retired 30-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department.

Some downtown pizza parlours seek to ease the burden of their most expensive edible overhead, Jones said.

The possibility of germ or disease transmission piles health concerns on top of legal and financial ones.

“Once, a particularly filthy and scuzzy crook—with open sores and scabs and the whole thing—was seen removing a two-pound block of cheese from inside his pants and selling it to a pizza place,” Jones said.

“My loss prevention guys have a whole list of places they won’t eat, just because of that….Yes, they have a list. No, I won’t be sharing the list.”

Downtown grocery stores tend to suffer higher rates of theft because they lie in areas inhabited by more crime-inclined individuals, Jones said.

Ongoing cheese theft in Vancouver has turned this dairy shelf heading into a sadly ironic phrase.

Expensive loot

Const. Jeff Campbell said widespread cheese-lifting has been a persistent problem since at least 2002.

“It became a steal-to-order thing,” he said. “‘I’ll give you $25 if you can get me a block.’ These blocks might cost roughly $100.”

With a smaller brick of cheddar or mozzarella, the price of crack cocaine could determine the amount paid for it.

“At one point, you’d get $2 for about 500 grams of cheese, because that was the price of a rock,” said Jones.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, complex international smuggling operations arose out of an insatiable demand for underground cheese.

“When I was in intelligence with the police, one of the big issues was offshore cheese,” Jones said. “Offshore cheese was organized crime.”

If a shipment of aged Dutch Gouda went bad in transport, he said, customs officials at the countries of origin and destination would reject it. Underground cheese-mongers then boated several miles offshore, carved off the particularly rotten parts of the import product and smuggled it into Vancouver to reprocess, repackage and resell it.

“We’re talking shiploads of the stuff,” said Jones.

Undercover ops

Vancouver grocery stores have implemented such measures as undercover security, behind-the-glass protection and video surveillance to minimize theft-induced revenue loss.

Gavin Bennett, a deli worker at a Choices Market in Yaletown, said his high-end employer recently took up the services of so-called secret shoppers. These private security officers, contracted by grocery stores like Choices and Nesters to combat cheese theft and shoplifting generally, patrol the aisles at random times throughout the week in the guise of ordinary customers.

The Downtown Vancouver BIA’s six-person loss prevention team works with business owners and police to reduce shoplifting. They provide seminars and training sessions on theft deterrence and response.

They also set up surveillance on suspicious individuals, including employees, when called—in some cases through a direct line installed at select grocery outlets.

Vancouver police worked in 2004 with the RCMP in an undercover sting operation, Project Raven, to shut down a Downtown Eastside pizza shop purchasing black market cheese and fencing other stolen goods.

“They sent in operatives,” said Campbell. “We’d see, did they go through the regular processes and ask where [the cheese] was purchased and make sure it was up to code. Or did they just bail out $25 and take it.”

Hamid Khogi, owner of Freshslice Pizza near Davie and Granville Streets, said second-hand cheese vendors continue to come in with blocks for sale.

“We need more police here to help and get rid of these guys,” he said.

Tesco, a British grocery retailer, began applying security tags to some of its cheese products last year in a bid to prevent shoplifting.

Stores in Vancouver and across Canada have yet to adopt this measure.