Submitted by anarresinfoshop in PacificNorthwest (edited )

Vancouver, BC -- Anarres Infoshop Worldwide News Agency
January 11th, 2023

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T he world's first publicly advertised (although not really legal per se) "hard drug" recreational retail dispensary will open next month in Vancouver, BC.

They already have retail pharmacies selling fentanyl. Yes, you read that correctly: straight up, pharmaceutical grade fentanyl in diluted powder form, and other opioids like Vicodin to the general public. You walk in, get a script, and fill it. The prices are matched to typical local street prices. Then you can take the drugs on-site at a supervised injection/consumption facility...but since last year, you even take them home to use later (although a lot of the patients are homeless, so that home might be a tent, but still-- they're allowed to be taken and then used off-site as of about 7 months ago, is the long and short of it).

That's the old news. Now, a local activist named Jerry Martin is planning to open a recreational retail store, illegally selling 2.5gram quantities of the newly decriminalized drugs, without requiring a doctor's prescription or active treatment program compliance at all.

This is possible because on February 1, 2023, British Columbia is fully decriminalizing possession of up to 2.5 grams of: heroin/opioids, crack cocaine and powder cocaine, methamphetamine, and i think other drugs too. there is not even a $100 fine or requirement for treatment, like there is in Oregon. The province obtained a 2 year permit to not enforce the Controlled Substances Act of Canada from the Canadian federal government. So, depending on how things go, this will be a trial for a permanent permit to not enforce the canadian federal controlled substances legislation in the province of British Columbia. However, if the conservative party is able to win back the federal government, I imagine they will try to cancel this, likely on the argument that retail stores operating in Vancouver will be allowing the trafficking of drugs to other provinces.

Jerry Martin, the man who will be bankrolling and owning the new store (called "The Drugs Store"), spoke to Vice News about how he lost his brother to an overdose late last year. "I lost my brother a couple of months ago on Hastings. He went down there to score and never made it back home...Everyday I’m not open, more people die. I can’t open fast enough."

Mr. Martin wants to open the store, primarily to sell legitimate and pure opioids that do not contain fentanyl to addicts. He hopes this will reduce overdoses and encourage people to avoid fentanyl contaminated products, or other products from the street. To that end, he plans to price-match and even undercut the street dealers, while selling a purer (and thus, fentanyl-free, thus less powerful, and consequently less dangerous) product. He will also provide harm reduction paraphernalia, referral to treatment programs, assistance with obtaining healthcare, and other educational materials at the store.

Mr. Martin expects to be raided and shut down, but he is advertising the business to be shut down. It is actually part of the plan. He intends to contest the entire controlled substances law in Canada as unconstitutional, and has retained some of the foremost canadian constitutional law attorneys to prepare for the case. He already had prepared a similar activist case, by opening an unpermitted cannabis store and then finding attorneys to fight the shutdown of the business, but he was undercut by the passage of the legal cannabis legislation in Canada simultaneous with the beginning of the legal case. So, now he is using the same attorneys to fight for the total end to prohibition of all drugs in Canada.

All of the drugs will be tested using a portable FTIR radio device, which allows you to point and shoot a laser at substances and determine their composition. Really cool stuff. A local nonprofit group in Vancouver provides the service already, I believe for free to anybody who comes during open hours. It's called Get Your Drugs Tested, and they're going to work with Mr. Martin to provide the service to the new retail location as well.

While retail dispensaries for so-called "hard drugs" might seem far-fetched, even to people living in Portland, Oregon where we saw the recent bust of a retail psychedelic mushroom dispensary called Shroom House (formerly located on West Burnside around NW 16th Ave, before the owner and several employees were arrested on felony charges late last year), the phenomenon is not so novel to people in Vancouver, BC. In fact, these retail dispensaries have been operating in Vancouver for years now, with "soft drug" dispensaries for peyote, psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis operating since the mid 1980s. So long as the businesses registered for a business license and paid their taxes to the provincial government, they were allowed to operate basically unimpeded until they were deemed to pose a "safety hazard" to their neighbors; usually, due to a robbery or attempted robbery that resulted in gunfire or injuries. However, this is the first hard drug retail dispensary in the world to advertise so publicly, because Mr. Martin is gearing up for a legal fight with the Canadian federal government. In the case, Mr. Martin and his lawyers will argue that drug prohibition is unconstitutional in Canada, because it results in predictable and catastrophic health consequences for drug users who are then forced to use an unregulated, dangerous black market.

A stirring and fascinating development in the Pacific Northwest! Many throughout the world will be eagerly watching to see if these various experiments are able to reign in a deadly and escalating overdose crisis, as well as other less widely known health crises associated with drug use, such as the historically high rates of liver and heart disease among black market MDMA users due to nearly ubiquitous adulteration of the product in North America.

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https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7qmv/canada-vancouver-store-that-sells-heroin-meth-crack-

https://libreddit.spike.codes/r/worldnews/comments/108r8cq/vancouver_man_to_open_canadas_first_crack_and/

https://archive.is/XFlnI

https://web.archive.org/web/https://filtermag.org/safe-supply-phs-vancouver-prescription-fentanyl

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Comments

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fortmis wrote

Incredible. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Amazing how he has prepared a legal team to fight the drug laws in advance of being shut down. Must applaud strategy wherever it shows up in activism. Not every day you see this level of strategy. Bless this man (and all those unnamed who are a part of this project).

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anarresinfoshop OP wrote

It will be interesting to see how well, or not, that this works. In any event, the effort will be of historical interest to people opposing prohibition.

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