by Robin Pierro
October 22, 2004
It is commonly known that young people in today's society have been going through what many individuals choose to call it, the war on drugs. If drugs in our society have become such a serious issue, why are there well known and well received stores located around the city of Toronto selling drug paraphernalia? There are stores such as THC, which has now become a chain of stores, Roacharama, Cloud Nine, and many more that are selling drug paraphernalia to the young citizens of Toronto. These stores have been operating for a number of years and are open to the public. So if the public is trying so hard to stop their children from doing drugs, why are these stores so blatantly ignored? I will tell you one thing right now, government officials, parents, and police are all aware of their existence. It is not that these stores go unnoticed, or are located in areas of the city that police don't go, that is a joke. So then, why you ask, are they still open and running, why haven't they been shut down, and why hasn't anyone done anything about this issue?
These stores are also major supporters of the legalizing marijuana act. The THC (Toronto Hemp Company) has a web site that receives 12,000 hits per day. On this web site the corporation clearly and evidently states their opinion about the drug laws in Canada. This web site clearly promotes the use of marijuana and even quotes, "The drug laws are infinitely more harmful than cannabis could ever be". Obviously the people who created this company and this web site never clearly thought about what they were writing, because marijuana is quite harmful to a human being, and obviously is much more harmful than a law. a law promotes civilized behavior, the law also promotes what is best for the general public. It is not a punishment to people who smoke pot, it is a way to keep our streets clean of drugs. The only thing about the law system that is harmful to people is that there are no official laws, or regulations stopping stores from selling drug paraphernalia.
When I contacted THC, I actually learnt quite a bit about the legal aspect of these stores. It was never clear to me whether or not these stores were opening legally, and what the process was to opening a "head" store. I found that it is not completely legal, but there are no particular laws against opening a store that sells drug paraphernalia. It is not the fault of the police who do nothing to shut down these stores, it is the court that does nothing to stop people from keeping these stores open and from opening them in the first place.
Dom Cramer, the contact I spoke to from THC, said, "To open a THC store there are no specific licenses or regulations that we have to follow, unless you sell tobacco products." Which means that any convenience store that sells cigarettes has to go through more paperwork to open their store than a THC store or any head store does. He also said, "You have to start a business legitimately, as with any business. Consult the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Relations for details."
There is a process that one has to go through before opening any store, and I am more than sure that during this process you must state exactly what you are planning on doing with your property. It is obviously quite easy to get away with opening these stores. If the government can't do anything to these stores once they are open, why not stop them before they open? The Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Relations should be investigating exactly what business these people want to start, and they should have stricter policies about what stores you can or cannot open. Not only did Cramer speak about the opening of head stores he also informed me about some of the products they are selling. To quote him; "You can use our tools for any number of applications--different herbs, tobacco, pot whatever. We don't ask. We don't tell." Maybe they don't ask, but when the name of your store is Toronto HEMP Company, I think it is implied what exactly their products are used for.
In Vancouver, there is a similar store to THC, only they had been openly selling pot over the counter for months. CTV found out about the store and decided to make an issue of it. a week after CTV made the story public the police busted in to the store. The day after the bust, the store was up and running again, not selling pot anymore, but still selling drug paraphernalia. It is ridiculous that the court system is so confusing and hectic at the moment that after so much effort made by police, there is no penalty or punishment towards the store owners. No official laws indicate anything about it being illegal to sell drug paraphernalia. I believe it is definitely time to change these laws.
The police will eventually give up on shutting these stores down if every time they make a bust, the court system just dismisses the case, because they have nothing to convict the storeowners with.
So is our legal system now just a jumble of laws and regulations that make no sense? If we want to stop the use of drugs, and if there are so many laws against drug use, why are there no specific laws against drug paraphernalia being sold to the public? With the expectance of these stores growing, the expectance of drug use will grow as well. It is time that the system changes and all the little kinks that allow these stores to stay open are straightened out. We need some laws that make sense, and stop the problem at the source.
Robin Pierro is a co-op student from Humberside, who is studying Journalism at the Canada Free Press. Robin has two part time jobs while attending high-school, and plans to study Journalism in university
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