On December 20th, 1996, the Vancouver Harm Reduction Club opened what must be North America's first modern marijuana storefront.

The Harm Reduction Club opened the "Dutch Embassy Flower and Tea Room" at 420 Grove Street and have been selling pot out of the small store every day since then. They've got banners in the window with slogans like "Marijuana is Medicine" and they've even got a sandwich board out on the sidewalk. The corner has a real Dutch feel, with the Dutch pancake house across the street, the flower shop next door specializing in Dutch tulips, and now, a marijuana smokeeasy. They do a brisk business and have not yet had any police hassles at this new location. (Note that 420 Grove Street is actually their real honest-to-goodness address. Cool, eh?)

As you might remember, the Harm Reduction Club was operating out of a private home, but were busted on December 4. The three main organizers of the club face charges of possession for the purposes of trafficking.

The Embassy has recently met with a few setbacks, all of them wearing ski masks and brandishing weapons. On the evening of January 17th, three males with guns came into the store and left with $1500 of grass, $300 in cash, and the store's scales. They claimed to be dealers who had had their turf infringed upon; they suggested that the store be closed down. Thanks to the generosity of local growers the store was restocked and reopened the next day, while the newsmedia carried the story on the evening broadcasts.

Three days later, the badmen paid a return visit, this time making off with the weed, some cash, the recently replaced scales, and a cellular phone. Their intimidation was a tire iron. This further setback has not discouraged David Malmo-Levine, who plans to reopen the store with the help of his generous supporters and the local cannabis community. After consulting with the club lawyer, the Embassy has gone to the Burnaby RCMPolice for assistance. Apparently, the police expressed that they were more concerned with theives than with the Embassy's harm reduction project; It is expected that their assistance will be enlisted provided there is an assurance that they won't bust the club without a formal complaint. To ease the tensions further, the Embassy will now require parental permission before any pot is sold to those under 18 years of age.

What follows is the full text of the full page ad which the Harm Reduction Club bought in local weekly paper Terminal City, announcing the December 20 opening of the new location.

To get in touch with the Vancouver Harm Reduction Club call their new number at (604) 291-7729, or call David Malmo-Levine at (604) 617-1169, or email him at growpotkin@hempbc.com. (He may take a while to answer email.)

THE VANCOUVER HARM REDUCTION CLUB
IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF THE
"DUTCH EMBASSY FLOWER AND TEA ROOM"

In other words, this gig may be North America's first shameless, above ground, fully accountable to the public, fully stocked cannabis dealership. Unlike Holland, we will not be serving any tobacco, alcohol, caffeine or other physically addictive drugs.

The whole point of the thing is to reduce the harm that comes with the inevitable use of drugs by 1) separating the hard and soft drug market and 2) educating everyone who chooses to use these drugs to minimize unwanted effects.

We stand by the studies done in Holland, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Germany and Australia, that the harm reduction drug policy is effective. Considering the police state we seem to be quickly slipping into and the environmental collapse looming from using too many synthetics, we feel that Canada must lead the way to end global cannabis prohibition, or world may one day become one great big Singapore. Or worse.

OUR MESSAGE TO POLICE

We know times are tough and no cop wants to lose their job over a bunch of whiny potheads. We don't want to make you look evil or stupid when we open our business. We just want you to cut us a bit of slack to experiment, let us put our money where our mouth is and see if we can't reduce social harm or not - if not completely satisfied, double your drugwar back.

This isn't some joke or prank. We are deadly serious. Many of us have been writing letters for years, patiently filing out each Access to Information request after Freedom of information request....only to find out that our government doesn't possess any evidence whatsoever that prohibition works! When we confront them with this, they hang up the phone, or cut us off at their extremely brief "town hall" meetings.

The court system is taking too long. Bill C-8, as you know, is practically law, and it will give you as much power over us as German police had over Jews in, say, thirty-six or so - long before the gas chambers, but just keep in mind Newt Gingrich is now calling for "mass executions" of all drug smugglers.

Under Bill C-8, you can now hire our friends as narcs, set us up, search us without probable cause, seize our property and if you happen to be one of those few "bad cops", you may now choose to plant stuff on us and get to testify by affidavit to avoid cross examination. We don't even get a jury trial for dealing any more. Forgive us if we feel a little desperate these days.

You don't have to go along with what you know is a witchhunt. Here are some ways to avoid it: 1) Keep busy investigating real crimes where people were harmed or property was stolen or damaged. 2) Wait until someone complains to you of some harm we have caused before you investigate us. 3) Use the findings in the Ledain Commission, the BC Chief Coroners report, the National Task Force on Cannabis in Australia 1994 among others to back up your conscientious non-cooperation with what can only be called drugwar crimes.

Still not convinced? Take this quote for example; from the Dutch government report titled "Drugs Policy in the Netherlands - continuity and change"

"The Netherlands' view that cannabis products entail less serious health risks than hard drugs and thus require a different approach, is not even shared by all the countries of the European Union. Recent reports from abroad by authoritative experts on drugs support the distinction made in Dutch law between soft and hard drugs. Criticism based on views about the heath risks for which no support can any longer be found in the scientific literature can of course not be grounds for amending Dutch policy."

If you are ordered to close us down, request scientific data first to back up your use of force, in order to avoid looking like fools in the media. No one will be able to give you any, and that will buy us some time.

If you absolutely must bust us, please don't have your guns drawn this time. Lets be civil about these things. We may be marijuana dealers, but we aren't dangerous.

OUR MESSAGE TO PARENTS

Let's face it - teens use and abuse pot. You can't stop them. Throw them in jail? They'll buy it there too. If there is a problem with teen pot use, it isn't because the pot is all that dangerous, it's because prohibition makes a relatively safe activity more hazardous, and carries serious side effects of it's own. What do we mean?

• The number one health consideration, impaired driving, happens more often in a prohibitionist system as 1) cars are used by teens to conceal their crime from their parents, and 2) the stigma connected to a criminal record prevents honest communication about a teen's need for help - in getting home from a party, for example.

• The second most important health consideration, lung damage, occurs more in a prohibitionist system because
  
  1. "safer smoking tools" like water pipes and glass pipes are banned,
  2. there's no quality control on the cultivation methods,
  3. "fake" pot and hash can be sold, with sometimes tragic results
  4. prohibition deters some grow operations and drives up the price, which then prevents teens from cooking with ganja butter - a safer (no lung damage, no toxicity level) but more expensive way to get high.

Prohibition also has some serious side effects:

• To get to the soft drugs, teens often get exposed to hard drugs.
• Some teens are also exposed to guns, gangs, and easy drug money.
• Peaceful users, dealers and growers face a record, stiff fines and even jail time. In some countries they face much worse.
• Young people are often direct victims of the drug war, be it in gang on gang violence or accidental shootings like Daniel Posse - accidentally shot dead by Vancouver Police during a marijuana raid (a raid which netted less than an ounce of pot).

At the Harm Reduction Club, rather than be hypocrites (most of us started smoking in our teens) and turn kids away, we give teens access to safer "just pot" surroundings. They must promise to 1) smoke responsibly, 2) not operate any heavy machinery while impaired, and 3) respect our neighbors as they come and go. We give them a copy of the "safer smarter smoking guide", and we put 10% of our profits for free legal council in the event of a club activity bust.

If anybody out there can show us that raising our age limit would reduce the harm further, we would be happy to bump it up to sixteen or eighteen or thirty-five or whatever.

Consider this: the risks of caffeine are greater than THC in every way. Found in chocolate, soda pop, coffee, tea and aspirin, caffeine is physically addicting (with headache as the most often cited withdrawal symptom) and can cause unnecessary stress, lightheadedness, breathlessness and an irregular heartbeat - or much worse in larger-than-average doses. You can also die of overdose. Thousands do every year. Marijuana isn't even remotely as dangerous - no deaths by overdose, no physical addiction, and minimal health risks in a tolerant and open world.

Now think about the real "wrong message" to give to your children. Remember, the little rugrats are often smarter than we give them credit for. They see through the reefer madness. Do you?

OUR MESSAGE TO OTHER DEALERS

Change isn't always bad. Sometimes, with a bit of forethought, one can take advantage of inevitable changes. Let's face it - this market is massive. We can all make tons of money going legit - and have lots left over to pay for schools and hospitals and turn Canada into what it could be - a land of peace, tolerance of alternative lifestyles and prosperity for everyone.

An end to the drug war would take the economic power out of the hands of the drug corporations and put it in the hands of us farmers - right where it should be. The same thing could then happen with industrial hemp.

If you aren't into any of this legalization stuff, at least leave us be. We are, after all, trying to make life a lot less stressful for you.

OUR MESSAGE TO OUR MEMBERS

This is it. Gotta draw the line somewhere. The witchhunt ends this Friday, December 20th, 1996 at two PM. At exactly two PM (not a moment sooner, for security reasons) phone your local hemp store and get the address of our cafe. Then get your (non-impaired) assess down there for a special, one day only sale on memberships and pot!!! For one day only, memberships will be half price! (5 bucks) and pot will be only 25 bucks for an eighth, or eight bucks for a gram sized joint (limit one joint and one eighth per member to avoid obvious problems).

Now's the time. Either we risk arrest now (by the way, each club member's legal expenses are covered for all club activities, including this one) or we risk Singapore later, and not too much later by the looks of it. Bring cameras, warm clothes (this party may have to go late, like three or four days late) and all your Clay-o-quot courage, but please leave alcohol, aggression and weapons at home. All musicians, entertainers and videographers will be smoked up for free, as per usual.

Now's the time. Everyone on earth knows prohibition is a scam. It's time to face the evil empire. The force of truth is with us.