For Immediate Release
Monday July 20, 2026
Victoria, B.C.: After being handed an eviction at 1625 Quadra Street, the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club has filed for an injunction against the landlord. This is an attempt to remain open until a judicial review can determine if the federal medical cannabis regulations continue to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The hearing for the injunction is set for today at 9:45 am. There is no date set yet for the next step in the judicial review.
The VCBC will be shut down on today so staff can witness the proceedings. Depending on what the judge decides, the VCBC may be able to open sooner, but to be safe the club is only able to commit to opening at 5 pm and staying open an extra hour until 7 pm.
Since legalization in 2018, the VCBC has been raided 4 times, with the last raid a few months ago on April 21. After the first two raids, the club was fined $3.2 million. As a result, VCBC board member, Clea Maclean, has recently had a lien placed against her property in Cowichan Bay by the province in an effort to collect some of the money. After the recent raid, the province also filed for Civil Forfeiture to take the building from the landlord, accusing them of accepting proceeds of crime for accepting rent money from us.
After the raid, the VCBC once again approached Victoria City Council for assistance. While the city is not able to intervene directly, they have written to the B.C. Solicitor General, Nina Krieger and B.C. Attorney General, Niki Sharma, to request that no further enforcement actions are taken until a judicial review can take place. In the letter, Mayor Alto is blunt.
“The latest efforts by the Province to attack and defeat the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club threatens the existence of a long-standing community service that has a history of supporting the health care needs of patients who have neither the financial nor systemic capacity to find that care elsewhere. I urge you to halt your persecution of VCBC at least until their judicial review has been resolved.”
The letter, along with an email from MLA Grace Lore, can be found at:
https://cannabisdigest.ca/elementor-14014/
The judicial review will focus on the failures of the federal medical cannabis program. Though there has been a federal medical cannabis program since 2001, it has been completely inadequate from the beginning, with many courts striking down various areas of the regulations. While some improvements have been made over time as a result of these court decisions, the program remains a dismal failure for most Canadians using cannabis as a medicine.
For more information contact Ted Smith at 250-415-1063 or hellovcbc@gmail.com.
