Judicial justice says city failed to establish that business sold products containing psilocybin
In February 2022, an inspector with the City of Vancouver arrived at a business to find a sign outside reading “mushroom dispensary, psychedelics, coca leaf, kratom, peyote, LSD, DMT.”
Inside the Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary at 651 East Hastings St., the inspector saw a counter with a sign that said “Coca Leaf Café,” with more signage advertising drinks and a warning that coca use can result in a positive drug test. Another sign read, “No minors.”
The inspector estimated that 90 to 95 per cent of the business was related to the “mushroom side.”
He also obtained a “membership application for the medicinal mushroom dispensary” and ultimately concluded that the business was “operating an illegal mushroom dispensary where substances containing psilocybin were being sold.”
These details are laid out in a recent B.C. provincial court decision that found the director of the business guilty of a bylaw offence.
However, Judicial Justice Aamna Afsar also found the City of Vancouver had failed to establish that the business sold or offered to sell products containing psilocybin — the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms.
“I think it’s fantastic and we were really hoping for this kind of victory,” said Medicinal Mushrooms Dispensary spokesperson Dana Larsen.
Lawyers involved in the case say it highlights Vancouver’s “murky” fight to shut down suspected mushroom dispensaries, coming on the heels of police raiding that same business and two others last year, only to see them reopen.
“There’s an argument to say that what they’re doing is regulating criminal law, which the municipal government is obviously not entitled constitutionally to do,” lawyer Jack Lloyd, who specializes in drug cases, told CBC News.
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