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Abbotsford lawyer John Conroy, also representing some of the dispensaries, said they have been operating illegally in a kind of “grey zone,” yet the city has abetted their existence by requiring them to be licensed while it makes a $30,000 profit in each case.

Conroy says the federal government must make rules allowing medical marijuana patients to buy their cannabis in a store, just as recreational users will be permitted to do starting next month. Patients are allowed to grow a limited amount of marijuana or have someone grow it for them, but Conroy said they have a constitutional right to buy it from a dispensary if a doctor has approved its use.

But Conroy said the federal rules and Vancouver’s bylaws are depriving medical cannabis users of that right.

“We’re simply trying to establish that there should be a separate, distinct provision for reasonable access by medical patients who simply want to go to a pharmacy-equivalent or a store to get their product,” he said.

The Karuna Health Foundation is the lead plaintiff It operates one dispensary that is licensed by the city and another that is not. The directors did not return a request for comment before deadline.

Dana Larsen, a cannabis activist who runs two Medical Cannabis Dispensary locations in Vancouver, said his Hastings Street store is involved in the case, which is expected to last a few weeks.

Dispensaries like his are “filling a gap in the legal system” and exist to serve medical patients, he said.