Ted Smith is the founder of the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club. (Subitted photo/Ted Smith)

By Karen Habashi

courts

B.C. compassion club files lawsuit after several raids

Jun 2, 2023 | 7:00 AM

The Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club (VCBC) is suing the provincial and federal governments after being raided three times and accumulating fines of $6.5 million.

Since legalization in October 2018, they have been raided by the provincial Community Service Unit (CSU) three times. The past raids occurred in November 2019 and then again in June 2020, with the most recent being March 23. Ted Smith is the founder of the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club.

“Ted has never gone looking for a fight in the courts,” said club lawyer Kirk Tousaw. “He has always defended himself, and he’s always been successful. They just want to be left alone. At the end of the day, they just want to do the good work they’ve been doing for almost three decades.”

The VCBC is one of the oldest compassion clubs in Canada with over 8,000 active members. They started assisting people with incurable physical medical conditions in January 1996.

“Ted Smith and the VCBC, which is a registered British Columbia non-profit society, have been operating in Victoria for 27 years. They’ve been servicing thousands of patients over those years. They’ve gone to the Supreme Court of Canada successfully, and they’ve had many other criminal defenses that were ultimately successful,” Tousaw said.

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“They’re supported by the city of Victoria, and they’re supported by the local community. This is probably the first compassion club to operate in Canada and certainly the longest-lasting at this point.”

As for Smith, he is determined to continue the fight for the cancer patients, as he himself suffered the loss of a loved one due to cancer.

“We reopen after every single raid. Our patients can’t afford for us not to be here. And we’re still hurting financially in some ways. We don’t have all our products available at all times yet. We can’t allow our members to go without medicine,” Smith said.

Smith has been a cannabis advocate for many years and has fought for the rights of the cannabis community. He was part of many cases that defined the new laws governing cannabis and provided access to many patients.

“The courts have consistently ruled repeatedly in favor of increased and expanded access. And the one constant throughout that span has been Ted Smith, the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada,” Tousaw explained.

“And now, almost 30 years later, we felt like we had to go to court proactively to seek a declaration that the law as applied to this non-profit compassion club is unconstitutional and that we should have an injunction preventing any further raids. We filed a petition in the B.C. Supreme Court to that effect, saying that this law was not intended to apply to medical cannabis access. It’s intended for you to regulate recreational stores,” stated Tousaw.

Although VCBC is a registered non-profit society, it’s considered an unlicensed dispensary and operates in violation of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act. By law, cannabis edibles should only contain 10 mg of THC, but the VCBC had been selling edibles with a higher concentration.

Western Buzz reached out to the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General about this matter, but they didn’t provide a comment as the issue is before the courts.

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