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The situation arose, Tousaw said, because the first handful of “compassion clubs” selling cannabis to patients in the 1990s, like the B.C. Compassion Club on Commercial Drive and the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club, were organized as non-profit societies with community service mandates.

“The mission was to provide compassionate access at a time when this was a disfavoured activity, and there was a sense that setting up as a non-profit would assuage some of the public concerns about profiteering off of what was seen to be an illegal drug,” Tousaw said.

“Had there been no cannabis prohibition, obviously this plant would be treated like all other plants and all other commodities. But because of the historical context, because of the way the law and the reality on the ground has developed over the last 20 years, you do have this fairly unique situation.”

Toma, Vancouver’s chief licensing inspector, also pointed to the historical context.

“In Vancouver, we’ve seen the successful operation of compassion clubs since 1997, so if that’s the model that council prefers to see in the city, that’s the model that doesn’t get the attention of police, that’s what we were trying to establish for Vancouver.”

Although police in some cities, including Vancouver, often allow pot shops to operate, they are illegal under federal law.

“It’s not common to have an industry characterized by non-profit organizations that are actively selling to the public,” said Lindsay Meredith, a marketing professor at SFU’s Beedie School of Business. “That’s just not common, that’s not a model I’ve seen anywhere, it’s not used in any kind of Western society as far as I know.”