Marijuana delivery advertised in city

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This article was published 18/12/2015 (3799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government hasn’t yet legalized marijuana in Canada, but that hasn’t stopped a Winnipeg drug dealer from advertising a pot-delivery service.

A flyer circulating in some parts of the city promises to deliver marijuana to cash-paying customers by “appointment” arranged over encrypted email.

It’s unclear how widely the flyer has circulated — copies have been delivered to some residents’ homes, but the Winnipeg Police Service said it hasn’t received any complaints.

The flyer advertises a “Winnipeg Cannabis Delivery Service,” and instructs people to email an encrypted address for more information and to arrange an appointment. When contacted by the Free Press, the person behind the email address wrote that the new venture is a “micro-business” based on activism, not profit.

“First off I hardly make any money doing this. I do it for the activism. I’ve figure (sic) out how to use this encrypted email to protect from getting robbed. I am a micro-business, and I will not stop,” they wrote.

“I’m a freedom activist, for love and health, over 30 years. I focus on cannabis cause (sic) it’s the spearhead for freedom and peace for the world.”

University of Manitoba criminologist Frank Cormier said he hadn’t heard of this kind of drug-dealer advertising tactic in Winnipeg before. Even when marijuana is legalized, regulations will likely mean it will be sold under the province’s liquor commission, not by a “delivery service.”

“It sounds like a really bad idea to me,” he said. “If these people are, in fact, selling marijuana, then they are breaking the law, and by putting out a flyer with an email address, they might be telling police where to find them,” he said, adding police could pose as a buyer and make an arrest.

This summer, Glenn Price was arrested and charged with drug-trafficking offences after police raided his illegal medical-marijuana dispensary on Main Street. He opened the business in July and was warned by police two weeks later to shut it down, but he continued until his Aug. 4 arrest. The charges are still before the court, and Price has vowed to fight them.

Cormier said the federal government’s plans to legalize marijuana could present some challenges for police in dealing with impaired drivers — there’s no breathalyzer test for cannabis, although police do employ various other types of roadside tests for drivers they suspect are high.

Otherwise, he said he doesn’t expect legalized marijuana will have a great effect on police work, other than saving police and courts the time they might otherwise have spent pursuing possession charges, he said.

“Police all over North America, at least, over the past decade or so, they’ve been charging fewer and fewer people with marijuana offences,” Cormier said. “If it’s a small amount, the tendency might be to just take it away from them, destroy it and let people go on their way.”

‘I hardly make any money doing this. I do it for the activism. I’ve figure (sic) out how to use this encrypted email to protect from getting robbed. I am a micro-business, and I will not stop’

The Winnipeg Police Service has declined to comment until it sees the new legislation.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has been vocal in its support of allowing officers to issue tickets instead of criminal charges for small amounts of marijuana, says it is confident it will be involved in the federal government’s task force to create the new legislation.

“Until I know what the government’s intending to do, I can’t say whether I’m for it or against it,” said association president and Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill. “I’m confident that the federal government will come up with a regulatory framework that will be comfortable for all involved.”

He said the association, which has about 1,000 members representing police agencies across Canada, is monitoring the effects of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington states.

“It really is too early to say what some of the upside of it is or what some of the downturn might be,” he said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca