Not on My Main Street:
Zoning Marijuana Prohibition and the municipal theatre of the War on
Drugs
Victor D. Yao
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Criminology
Criminology Department
Faculty of Arts
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Date Defended: Monday, June 26th, 2017
Abstract
This thesis examined the development and application of urban bylaws, in this case the
City of Delta’s, which regulate properties commonly hosting growing operations or
laboratories producing and handling federally-listed controlled substances such as
marijuana. The project was largely exploratory and involved qualitative examination
public documents such as council meetings, reports, memos and correspondence
regarding Delta’s Zoning Bylaw and Controlled Substance Property Bylaw—which
control how land and property are used in the municipality and impose punitive
sanctions on owners and renters whom infract on these regulations. Prohibitionist
bylaws such as these can have disruptive consequences on the national legalization of
marijuana due to these bylaws de facto continuing prohibition on the local level. The
project uncovered justifications behind the ordinance—both formal and informal—and
found a legal ecosystem of related municipal ordinances interacting with the (specifically
those involved with medical marijuana dispensaries and production facilities), potential
overlaps between bylaws as a result of higher-level changes in law as well as legal and
economic consequences—such as creating favourable conditions for large
agribusiness.
Keywords
Cannabis, medicinal cannabis, zoning, municipal bylaws, legal ecosystem,
dispensaries, agribusiness, War on Drugs, legalization, city council, justification,
ideology
Acknowledgments
I would first like to thank my truly super Supervisor Dr. Lisa Freeman for all her support
and guidance—you helped make this project truly polished! I would also like to thank
those on the Thesis Committee, the Honours Committee and my referees to the
honours program for all their feedback and support. And a big thanks to the helpful staff
at the Delta Municipal Hall, Delta Cable, the Kwantlen Polytechnic University library
and, of course, the staff at the Delta Museum and Archives who let me use their couch
and coffee table as an AV room.

Introduction/Background
I had not heard the word “grow-op” until I was in Grade 7 when a Delta Police
constable came to our class to give a drug safety talk to the students followed by a brief
show-and-tell of her patrol cruiser. My classmates (unlike me) were familiar with the
word since they had not spent the past five years (1999-2004) abroad as a Canadian
expat in American Samoa and Trinidad. The constable informed us of the physical and
mental harms caused by illicit drugs, noting that marijuana was the least harmful and
addictive of the group. My interest in this topic was dormant until an undergraduate
class on late Imperial China led to the subject of the Opium Wars. Our instructor made
connections between the arguments and debate over opium liberalization and current
discussions of marijuana legalization. This lecture motivated me to change the focus of
my degree from General Studies to Criminology and sparked an interest in drug laws
around marijuana or cannabis.
In this paper, I build on my initial (and general interest) in the regulation of
marijuana and will critically investigate the development, objectives and application of
cannabis-related municipal bylaws in Delta. This research will provide an understanding
of the process behind the creation and enforcement of bylaws regulating land-uses and
businesses that sell, handle or otherwise deal with controlled substances and
chemicals. Since there is little research on this topic, my study fills a gap in the research
on marijuana regulation in Lower Mainland municipalities. My focus on municipal bylaws
led me to examine the specific bylaws that addressed activities related to marijuana and
city documents and papers that discussed these bylaws, their effectiveness and
context. Meanwhile, I paid close attention the content of my research to see if there
were aspects of (latent/implicit) ideological influences on municipal bylaws that are not
explicitly stated by the official wording of them. I maintained a critical view of municipal
bylaws with the view that ideological influences might also coincide with potential
economic and class-based characteristics in bylaws and questioned the role that they
play in the “War on Drugs”. Overall in this paper I argue that municipal bylaws play an
important, though less noticeable, role in the War on Drugs1.
Delta is a suburban municipality located south of the Fraser River, west of the
City of Surrey and north of Whatcom County (Point Roberts) in the US State of
Washington. It is the southwestern edge of the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area.
Delta is comprised of three main urban centres/communities: Tsawwassen (furthest
south; next to the US-Canada border), Ladner (in the center; next to the Fraser River)
and North Delta (furthest north and east; next to Surrey). Besides being suburban,
nearly half of Delta is agricultural land while one fifth is occupied by the Burns Bog. The
city lies in the intersection of the region’s main transportation infrastructure (Corporation
of Delta, Official Community Plan, 1-6). The city’s official name until recently was the

1 “War on Drugs” refers to the current global effort, started and led by the United States, to criminalize

narcotic substances and their use that began in the latter half of the 20th century (Lopez, 2016). Canada is
a participant in this effort in part due to how much the US has an influence over Canada—such as in
trade policy (Major & Kapelos, 2018). The term “prohibition” means that, by law, a material product is
forbidden from being produced, exchanged or consumed with the goal of eliminating the product itself or
the practices around it (Thornton, 1991, 71-73).

2Corporation of Delta rather than “City of Delta”. This is a frequent source of frustration

for city officials and confusion to outside parties—as was noted by civic delegations sent
to Rotterdam, Netherlands and to Canada’s federal capital Ottawa. Since 2017, Delta’s
local government has undergone the process of formally changing its name to “City of
Delta” (Gyarmati, 2017) which was finalized on September 22nd, 2017 by order of British
Columbia’s Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and the Minister of Municipal Affairs
and Housing (Order in Council No. 362).
Delta is a culturally diverse municipality but there are certainly areas of it that are
more homogenous (European, Asian, conservative, bohemian, etc.) than the rest.
Indeed, although Delta’s bylaws are not overtly or intentionally designed with racial or
class categorization in mind, it is certainly the case that they may impact certain ethnic
populations more than others and that fines and penalties imposed on properties would
impact homeowners and tenants of certain income levels.3 Delta is located on the
traditional sovereign territories of the Tsawwassen First Nation—a Coast Salish people
whom are the original inhabitants of the area and exercise local jurisdiction on the
coastline southwest of the settler suburbs of Tsawwassen (Tsawwassen First Nation,
2016). The Musqueam First Nation are also present on a small patch of land west of
Ladner (Musqueam Indian Band, 2011). The municipality as a political entity was
incorporated in 1879 with Ladner as its administrative centre (Corporation of Delta,
About Delta, 2017) and the authority of Delta and its Official Community Plan ultimately
derives from the Province of British Columbia’s Local Government Act (Corporation of
Delta, Official Community Plan, 1-3). In addition to changes in BC politics and marijuana
laws, Delta’s current political focus revolves around issues of housing prices, the
George Massey Tunnel and wastewater treatment plant and casino proposals.
By presenting an argument that situates municipal bylaws within in the broader
and ideological framing of the War on Drugs, I suggest that municipal bylaws in Delta
further the harmful policy regime of prohibition. Further, I argue that bylaws—particularly
those regulating activities related to marijuana production and use—are developed
based upon ideological factors or reactionary thinking (such as militant Drug
War/Prohibitionist orthodoxy/rhetoric) rather than objective considerations of fact or
reason. My research revolved around questions relating to how the bylaws were
developed and applied, with a key interest in potential consequences. Particularly, I
looked for evidence of ideological influences on policy and what sort of effects or
applications would the bylaw have in a class dimension.
As such, I have organized this paper in the following order. First I elaborate on
the context of drug regulation/policy on a local, region, national and international-level. I
then review the academic scholarship on drug policy and municipal bylaws followed by
a discussion of this project’s research methods. Third, I present the key findings of this
study by highlighting particular themes in the data. After presenting the initial findings, I
present an analysis and discussion of the potential implication this research might have
2 In this paper, the use of Delta’s former official name will be minimized except where necessitated in the

in-text citations and bibliography. For the remainder if this paper I will refer to Delta as simply ‘Delta’.
In Operation “Bud-Out” the pool of suspects arrested for marijuana growing operations were
overwhelmingly of Vietnamese heritage (Bellett, May 15, 2000, p. B1/Front).
3

on future research and understandings of municipal bylaws and implementing drugoriented policies on the local level.
Drug Regulation in Context (Local-Regional-National-International)
There had been a growing concern about marijuana grow operations in the
Lower Mainland in the early 2000s. British Columbia had seen the highest rate of drugrelated offences and incidents in Canada. The City of Surrey had seen the rate of 247
incidents per 100,000 people in 1998 rise to 531 per 100,000 in 2002 while Vancouver
saw, in the same period, a rise from 356 to 545 and Richmond 403 to 651 (Toronto,
Canada’s largest city4, saw a comparatively measly rise of 172 to 211). Many of these
incidents involved marijuana (Fraser, March 19, 2004, p. A4). Police, in the early 2000s,
estimated approximately 10,000 marijuana grow operations existed in BC and various
initiatives were being looked at to respond to this growing issue. A few remedies
proposed by police included registering landlords and their rental properties; bylaws
ensuring that shops selling hydroponic equipment register their sales (including
pawnshops); bylaws forcing landlords or their representatives to do certain checks on
their property and renters; and asking city councils to refuse new licences for
businesses selling hydroponics equipment (Dawson, April 16, 2000, p. A12).
During the early 2000s, other municipalities in the Lower Mainland of BC, namely
Port Moody (with their Controlled Substance Property Bylaw (No. 2523)) and Surrey
(with their Community Improvement & Controlled Substance Manufacture Bylaw (No.
14422)) (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, August 7, 2003), had enacted local
government bylaws that would charge property owners for the costs of building safety
inspections, removal and disposal of narcotics and drug equipment (which included both
marijuana grow-ops and methamphetamine labs), search warrants and police overtime
that a city would normally have to pay the bills on (Delta Optimist, February 11, 2004, p.
3). In January 2003, a landlord in the Whalley area of Surrey announced the sale of
their house following multiple raids by RCMP on the property leading to the discovery of
amounts of crack cocaine (Spencer, January 24, 2003, p. A7). In June that same year,
a residential property in Surrey became the first in BC to be forfeited to the Crown under
new Federal forfeiture laws (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, August 7, 2003).
Municipalities clearly felt an urgency in regulating the situation of marijuana regulation.
In 2004, Delta passed a local statute called the Controlled Substance Property
Bylaw (acting under definitions of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act)
(CSPB, 2004, 2) which includes the following prohibition: “No person, owner or
occupant of property shall cause, permit or allow any property to become or remain a
place for the manufacture, trade, use, sharing, sale or barter of a controlled substance”
(CSPB, 2004, 3). The bylaw included provisions allowing for municipal enforcement
inspection, cutting off of utilities and monetary penalties (CSPB, 2004, 3-6). This bylaw
created in 2004 clearly was meant to control and prevent the incidence of marijuana
grow-ops in Delta residential neighbourhoods.

4

Over 6.2 million people in 2016 according to Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tablestableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo05a-eng.htm

In 2016, the newly opened WeeMedical Dispensary in North Delta had its
business license application rejected by the Corporation of Delta on the grounds that it
contravened the city’s bylaws. In this case, the WeeMedical Dispensary violated
provisions of the Delta Zoning Bylaw that prohibited land-use for the production and
retail sale of medicinal cannabis within the boundaries of the municipality (Kupchuk,
2016). Councillor Bruce McDonald emphasized that the decision by Delta Council was
not about the medicinal qualities of marijuana itself—he stated: “We’re not here to talk
about marijuana as good, bad, or indifferent. We’re talking about a business” (Kupchuk,
2016). However, it was clear that the Corporation wanted to be tough on drugs.
Despite this opposition from the city, WeeMedical continued to operate until it
was ordered closed by the British Columbia Supreme Court. However, it reopened
again under a different legal name, and the battle is still in the courts (Dimoff, 2016).
During this legal battle in Delta, cannabis continues to be a major, multi-billion dollar
industry in British Columbia’s economy with significant potential tax revenue for cities
looking to reinvest in infrastructure. Before being overshadowed by other societal
concerns, cannabis regulation had initially been predicted to become an issue in BC’s
May 2017 provincial election (Bell, 2016).
The debate over marijuana prohibition occurs in a time of public fear and concern
in Delta and the Lower Mainland of BC over the health risks posed to drug users—
particularly the risk of death by the synthetic opioid known as fentanyl. In Delta nine
people overdosed from fentanyl within 20 minutes of each other when they took what
they believed was untainted cocaine (Jacques, 2016). Only the day before had the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority released data they had collected from the
supervised injection site Insite which revealed that a vast majority of street drugs
contained this highly dangerous opioid (Canadian Press, 2016).
In this fentanyl crisis, Delta (in coordination with Delta Police, Delta School
District, Fraser Health and others) was prompted to host a series of public forums (one
of which I attended) to discuss with and inform the public of the crisis (Cloverdale
Reporter, 2016). At the forum, Delta Police made the interesting clarification that
fentanyl posed more of a risk to drug users consuming heroin, oxycodone and cocaine
and not so much for those using marijuana5 (Vaughan-Smith, 2016. 4-5).
The local context of marijuana regulation in Delta occurs at an interesting
moment in national and international approaches to drug policy and regulation. In the
United States, we have seen the increasing visibility of conservative and far-right politics
with the 2016 election of Donald Trump. While major US news media outlets focused on
the results of the presidency (and a little on the Senate and House races), other
important changes occurred on November 8th, 2016 that went underreported. In several
states, voters passed ballot measures that legalized marijuana recreationally while
several more (mostly land-locked) states’ voters passed ballot measures legalizing
marijuana medically (Levin, 2016). This, however presents a conflict of both laws and
the opinions of government officials as marijuana may be legal on the state-level but not
5

The risk has more to do with cross-contamination due to poor quality control and not necessarily
because of intentional use in the cannabis (Vaughan-Smith, 2016. 4-5).

the federal-level (Joachim, 2014). Developments in the US are influential on this project
as they reflect overall cultural changes in attitude towards marijuana that are
manifesting themselves in official local government reforms—reforms that may influence
decisions by local governments in Canada (some of whom are literally adjacent to US
districts that have legalized recreational cannabis)6 to accommodate this change or
resist it entirely. For municipalities in the Lower Mainland, this type of reform or reaction
manifests itself in the form of bylaws and land-use regulations.
In April 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new legislation changing
the legal status of marijuana (legalization) that would originally have become law on
July 1, 2018 (Cochrane, 2017). However, the date was delayed and changed to October
17, 2018 after the Liberal government decided to allow the provinces more time to
prepare for the coming legalization despite their previous promises of a summer
deadline (although the Prime Minister was also under pressure for a full-year delay in
legalization) (Courtenay, 2018). Cannabis legalization fulfilled the promise made by
Trudeau’s Liberal Party during Canada’s 2015 federal election in which Trudeau had
promised to remove the prohibition of marijuana consumption from the Criminal Code
and design a regulatory regime for legalized sale and distribution (Real Change, 2015,
55).7 Recreational cannabis did finally become legal across Canada on October 17 th,
2018, but there are still numerous concerns and questions remaining about how
legalization will be implemented—particularly regarding how cannabis can be sold
commercially in the provinces (Butler, 2018).
The Liberals’ legalization scheme has faced criticism from long-time cannabis
advocate (the so-called “Prince of Pot”) Marc Emery who has labelled it as “not a real
legalization” due to the myriad number of rules and regulations that will continue to
criminalize people for even minor or unintentional infractions (notably, one’s own
residence might not necessarily be a legal place to smoke). Emery has also called the
legalization dysfunctional because, although October 17th is the date recreational
cannabis became legal, it will not be available in for authorized government retail sale in
most provinces (which Emery criticizes for making the product too expensive) until 6-7
months after that date—during which, raids and arrests will continue to be conducted
against private, unauthorized sellers. A more ominous concern Emery raises (which,
incidentally will come up again later in this paper) is the preferential treatment of
cannabis production by large corporations and agribusiness (Coulter, 2018).
Likewise, concerns over the handling of criminal pardons for those previously
convicted of simple marijuana possession have also been raised. The Liberal
6 Recreational Cannabis was legalized in Washington State in 2014 by voters in State Initiative 502. Delta

physically borders the State’s exclave of Point Roberts and is only a few kilometres from the rest of
Washington.
7
Curiously, despite the claims made by the Liberal Party platform, marijuana possession was actually
listed under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and not the Criminal Code itself.
Nevertheless, under the CDSA, anyone found in possession of Cannabis “is guilty of an indictable offence
and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years less a day” (CDSA, S4(4a)) and that is just
one punishment for one type of drug possessed in one way it is possessed (there are many more
variations).

government have proposed to waive the $631 fee and 5-10 year waiting period to apply
for a pardon and record suspension for those charged with marijuana possession.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale claims that the move will “shed the burden and
stigma” and break down the barriers such convictions put for employment, housing,
education or volunteering. However, the minister has so far not presented a timeframe
for such pardons and the proposal has also faced further criticism in the House of
Commons from the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP). NDP Justice critic Murray
Rankin has called for complete expungement of such criminal records because simply
suspending them (as Minister Goodale has proposed) does not actually remove the
barriers people face for travel, housing or volunteer work. Specifically, people would still
be required to answer “yes” on any form that asks if they have (even suspended)
criminal convictions—thereby perpetuating punishment for a crime that is no longer one.
The Liberal government, of course, would have precedent for expunging these records
since, earlier in 2018, they tabled legislation that would expunge the records for those
previously convicted of activities (buggery, etc.) that were aimed at criminalizing
homosexuality. Although the Liberal government has claimed that marijuana conviction
does not meet the criteria of “profound historical injustice” that homosexual convictions
face, this rationale has been challenged by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh because of the
close relationship cannabis convictions have with discrimination against racialized
communities, Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups whom would still suffer
without full record expungement (Harris, 2018). Undoubtedly, Canada’s postlegalization drug policy is certainly going to be a confusing and difficult chapter.
However, pre-legalization, Canadian drug policy had some exceptions
particularly with regards to safe-injections sites like INSITE (Fafard, 2012, 906) and for
medical use of cannabis in accordance with the Access to Cannabis for Medical
Purposes Regulations (Health Canada). The legal exemption of using cannabis for
medicinal purposes has had an impact on the municipal government-level. The City of
Vancouver’s existing zoning regulations regarding the growing number of medical
marijuana dispensaries arose out of a lack of a clear or transparent regulatory
framework from the Canadian federal government. As such, Vancouver had to adopt
regulations that were partially (and explicitly) based on the regulatory frameworks of the
US states of Washington and Colorado (specifically with regards to appropriate
distances between marijuana dispensaries and other types of property) (Vancouver,
2015). The legalization of marijuana will present questions for cities regarding how they
should respond or regulate commercial activities on marijuana products that are used
recreationally.
Like in the end of alcohol prohibition, local area governments still have the
authority to enact measures of control (such as bylaws) around such products and
activities associated with them (Locke, 2013). Prior to legalization, some BC
municipalities already had bylaws on the books that regulate properties and businesses
that deal with controlled substances like marijuana (Corporation of Delta, Council
Report, August 7, 2003). There is comparatively little academic work on this subject as
opposed to the criminal law aspects of drug liberalization. Thus, it is useful and timely
explore how cities regulate controlled substances and how they decided upon the
bylaws they enacted.

When discussing the regulation of drugs, it is important to acknowledge and
address the meaning behind the “War on Drugs.” The “War on Drugs” is a term first
used by US President Richard Nixon to describe the global, militarized effort to enforce
strict prohibition against the production, transportation and consumption of certain
narcotics and psychoactive substances—with a focus, ideally, on the production and
transportation side of the issue (Lopez, 2016). Domestically, the “War on Drugs” calls
for national governments to provide increasing assistance (this can include funding
expenditures, equipment and more flexible laws) to local and regional police to intensify
enforcement efforts (police departments in the US are incentivised to enforce prohibition
under threat of losing funding). Internationally, national governments (notably the US
government) provide aid to the governments of other countries in enforcing prohibitionist
policies there—particularly military assistance to Latin American countries like Colombia
where drug trafficking has allowed organized crime to establish their own armed forces
or militias (Lopez, 2016). The “War on Drugs”, however, has had very problematic
results. These include (but are not limited to) drug production expanding to other
regions (rather than being reduced), disproportionate application of the law on
communities of colour and leading to sharp increases in violence by organized crime (in
some countries, this has led to major refugee crises) (Lopez, 2016). From a simple
series of national efforts, drug prohibition is now manifested as a world-wide system
held up by international treaties (overseen by the United Nations’ International Narcotics
Control Board) in which every country on Earth is a signatory or is in legal compliance
with one or more of said treaties (Levine, 2003, 145). Modern national (US) drug
prohibition’s origins lay in the 1920s when the main focus for the US government was
stamping out alcohol (Levine, 2003, 146).
However, national and multinational prohibition efforts against drugs and alcohol
have existed in North America and Asia for centuries, primarily against opium. The
Chinese Empire (Qing Dynasty) had enacted numerous bans on recreational opium
throughout the 19th century in response to massive rates of addiction. Like what
happened later in the 20th century, this led to the rise of organized crime (notably by
members of the Triad Society), smuggling operations and familiar public debates led by
legalization advocates (Rowe, 2009, 166-167). Eventually, concerns over opium-use
grew in the West, leading to a proliferation of local bans on opium smoking (such in San
Francisco in 1875) and eventually national regulatory regimes such as the 1914
Harrison Narcotics Act in the US (Windle, 2013, 1187-1188) and various statutes in
1920s Britain that had resulted from the 1926 Rolleston Committee Report on opium
addiction and pharmacy control (Bennett, 1988, 301-302). In Canada, drug laws and
drug “scares” had their origins in period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and
were influenced by colonialism and racism (where regulation of First Nations people and
Chinese immigrants was the focus) as well as from temperance and anti-opiate
movements in society. Substance use regulation began as early as 1886 when
amendments to the Indian Act established prohibitions against buying or possessing
alcohol for First Nations people (which did not prevent them from doing so and led to
otherwise unnecessary arrests and imprisonment) (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 43).

The arrival of Chinese migrants8 led to the next phase of drug control: opium.
Institutional anti-Asian sentiments of the white settlers coincided with mass fears of
opium smoking spreading to white populations as well as racist fears of white women
being victimized by “evil” Chinese men (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 45). These sentiments,
fomented by media, labour, police and local politicians, eventually led to civil disorder
such as Vancouver race riots of 1887 and 1907. Future Prime Minister Mackenzie King,
visiting BC to the settle damage claims of Chinese and Japanese residents caused by
the 1907 riot, was contacted by the Anti-Opium League. King considered investigating
prohibitionist policies—the hope was “to get some good out of this riot” (Boyd & Carter,
2014, 45).
Mackenzie King’s report on riot compensation was accompanied by another: The
Need for Suppression of the Opium Traffic in Canada—which outlined some of the
physical and moral (emphasizing Canada’s responsibility as a “Christian” nation) harms
of opium smoking and recommended outlawing sales, production and imports of opium
in order to protect the citizenry. King’s recommendation resulted in the Opium Act of
1908—notable for its passing with little parliamentary debate or pharmacological
evidence or testimony to support it. It was also racially biased. The Act regulated
smoke-able opium—an activity linked mostly to Chinese men—but not so much the
elixirs and patent medicines associated with white settlers (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 45).
However, it was not until 1923 that cannabis was criminalized in Canada (like the
Opium Act, it was done without debate). However, at the time, cannabis was not yet a
popular drug in either Canada or the US (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 51). The demonization
of cannabis use outside of the moral reformer discourse emerged in the 1930s. During
the Great Depression there was a time of an increased influx of Mexican labourers—
whom were unfairly demonized in the press for being associated with the introduction of
marijuana-use amongst Americans and Canadians (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 52-53). Moral
reformers and the media in the US and Canada identified marijuana use as threatening
the middle-class society and youth (which conveniently was also experiencing
demographic shifts from Hispanic North Americans). As such, it was the 1930s that saw
increased efforts by law enforcement in both the US and Canada (at times these efforts
were in direct coordination as was the case with the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics
and the RCMP’s Narcotics Division operationally and policy-wise) (Boyd & Carter, 2014,
52-53). The years leading up to the 1960s saw an increase in the popularity of
cannabis-use alongside increasingly sensationalist media reporting on the dangers of
the drug. Indeed, prior to 1961, arrests for marijuana possession in Canada were
considerably rare: no arrests were made until 1937 (which saw 4) and would remain
stable in number until 1958 (14 people) and then more in 1960 (21 people) (Boyd &
Carter, 2014, 55).
In 1961, Canada enacted, under pressure from law enforcement officials, the
Narcotic Control Act which became notable for being one of the harshest drug laws of
8

First began during the 1858 gold rush in British Columbia but contributed to also by the construction of
the Canadian Pacific Railway post-1867 (Belshaw, 2016, 274, 251); Japanese immigration began around
the 1890s (Belshaw, 2016, 254); immigration from South Asia began roughly around the 1910s (Belshaw,
2016, 256).

any Western country9. As the 1960s progressed, cannabis-use increased in popularity
and became associated with the growing counterculture movement—combined with
increasingly harsher laws, this resulted in a substantial increase in arrests in both the
United States and Canada; coincidentally accompanied by increased media hysteria
around the drug in both countries (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 55-57). Changing attitudes and
concerns around marijuana-use during the late 1960s to the late 1970s would see a
temporary relaxation of anti-drug laws. In 1969, Canada gave its judges more discretion
in their ability to impose lesser penalties for simple marijuana possession (but offences
relating to trafficking would continue to be harshly punished) (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 5859).10 National cannabis prohibition and cannabis regulations enforcement in Canada
have continued to evolve as such to the present day—but hardly in a situation free of
international influences.
Not unlike modern multinational efforts, this emerging trend of domestic
prohibition coincided with the US government lending support for China’s opium ban
and imposing similar bans on the Philippines (then a US colony) (Windle, 2013, 1187).
A formal multinational effort to prohibit opium use began as early as 1909 at the
Shanghai Opium Conference which was led and pushed for by the United States and
included 13 other countries. Canada’s Mackenzie King was in attendance and had
established himself and Canada as pioneers in drug control (given his 1908 Opium Act).
Most notably, King was quoted as saying that US delegations to the Conference had
admitted to copying Canadian legislation in drafting drug suppression statutes. The
Shanghai Conference laid the foundations for the 1912 (first) International Opium
Conference in The Hague where the first international drug control treaty—the
International Opium Convention—was signed by participating countries. Despite the
Canadian legislative influence, leadership in opium control would be a predominantly
American effort (applied largely to East and South Asian nations) (Boyd & Carter, 2014,
46-47).
Since the early 1980s there has been an increasingly militarized response to
drug production and use, particularly in the United States (indeed, President Ronald
Reagan made curtailing drugs a “national security” issue) (Bagley, 1988, 189). In this
aggressive, modern policy regime, if a government sought to address drug consumption
they have little room for any other response since, like the 18th Amendment and
Volstead Act limited US states’ responses to alcohol, the 1961 Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs similarly restricts reform attempts by national governments (breaching or
withdrawing from this treaty opens countries to severe sanctions) (Levine, 2003, 150).
The role of bylaws and municipalities play in prohibitions influenced by the War
on Drugs has not been studied to the same extent as researchers have done for federal
and state/provincial/territorial governments, police, schools or health authorities. Nor
has there been much study of the reasoning processes behind the enactment and
9

The Act reinforced the (socially-constructed) notion that use, users, producers and sellers of drugs was
naturally criminogenic; that same year, Canada signed onto the International Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs (Boyd & Carter, 2014, 56).
10
The United States, in contrast, would see a period during 1973-1978 of decriminalization on the statelevel only to revert back to criminalizing marijuana possession as public opinion began to shift again at
the end of the 1970s (Nadelmann, 1998, 122).

enforcement of such bylaws. As such, Delta is an interesting place to study in that its
municipal Council have been active in passing bylaws and fighting court cases that are
clearly directed at addressing marijuana-related activities. Delta’s location in Metro
Vancouver and its proximity to Washington State (regions known for liberal attitudes
towards cannabis; Washington legalized it recreationally in 2014) make studying this
municipality’s political activities even more intriguing. In order to situate my case study
in the broader context of drug regulation, I will first discuss literature related to local
government and narcotics regulation.
Literature Review
Critique of local laws and the War on Drugs:
For this paper, I have drawn from socio-legal studies, political and health
sciences literature to examine the broad range of studies and documents in the area of
drug policy and regulation. In this section, I will first examine the literature relating to the
critique of legal mechanisms and local/municipal regulation. In the second section, I will
approach laws from a class-based and intersectional perspective. In the third section, I
frame local laws within critical discussion of the discourse of the War on Drugs.
It is imperative to first define bylaws and examine how they operate. Valverde, a
leading scholar on municipal law, acknowledges that municipal laws govern, land and
its uses or activities—not necessarily or directly the people on it (Valverde, 2005, 35).
Municipal statutes regulate a space’s access, control, “enjoyment of” by people, its
division and its material contents like buildings and structures (Valverde, 2005, 36).
Interference with any of these spatial characteristics (such as the “enjoyment”)
unreasonably can be considered “nuisances” and subject to legal consequences
(Johns, 2005, 65). Under this system, for example, towns can forbid activities such as
smoking too close to open windows or skateboarding in a shopping centre. Localities
also use bylaws to regulate what has been termed locally unwanted land uses (Németh
and Ross, 2014, 6). Indeed, much of the literature on local law is critical of certain local
government uses of bylaws and some draw influence from critical or structural theories
(Valverde, 2005, 35).
Local Legal Mechanisms & Division of Powers in Canada
The function and effect of local laws11 and the legal structures behind them have
been criticized by several socio-legal scholars. Notably, the legal structure that bylaws
operate under is inherently flawed with limited powers granted to local bylaws that
forces governments to operate in a manner that appears to be oppressive on one hand
or ineffective on the other. Scholars focus on the structure and vulnerabilities of local
laws. Laws may be big and oppressive, but that is due to inherent flaws in the legal
system itself. These flaws, in turn, affect the power of local laws and regulations to carry
out their objectives. Canada’s federalist Constitution grants and divides certain
sovereign powers to the Federal and Provincial governments (Constitution Acts, S. 9195). Municipal, local or city levels of government lack these powers and are legally
subordinate to the Provincial and Federal governments—thus limiting their legal means
and authority to effectively address social problems or matters of social justice. Zoning
11

Bylaws/ordinances/regulations created by municipal governments.

and land-use regulations are thus the only tools that many local governments have to
respond to social issues (Ranasinghe and Valverde, 2006, 327). Additionally,
international laws and treaties, like the aforementioned United Nations 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, restrict reform attempts by national governments
(Levine, 2003, 150).
Given the restrictive legal hierarchy that municipalities must operate in,
municipalities are limited in their choice of actions. Actions which, consequently, can be
interpreted as oppressive towards lower-income and/or marginalized groups of people.
In Allard v. Canada, the Court noted issues with municipal bylaws in addition to the
Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations’ unconstitutionality (where plaintiffs’
Section 7 Charter rights involving the right to life, liberty and security of the person were
violated). Particularly, the judge noted that bylaw compliance inspections presented
privacy issues for medical marijuana patients (Allard v. Canada, 2016). Essentially, as
this case demonstrated, the lawful and dutiful enforcement of local government
ordinance compliance can lead to violations of civil liberties of vulnerable groups.
Likewise, municipal processes attempting reform the system have similar
structural flaws. Although local governments technically are open to public input on
decision-making, not everyone is able to effectively utilize their rights or properly
advocate for themselves. For example, municipal land-use laws are directly tied to
ownership of property and the rights of landowners. As such, landless persons like the
homeless cannot argue for or make claims on their shelters based on rights. At the
same time, public consultations themselves operate under the presupposed assumption
that all concerned parties to an issue are equal in status and stature (Ranasinghe and
Valverde, 2006, 329). Effectively, the “right” to the city’s space and land is only a right
for some, not everyone (Mitchell, 2003, 189). Scholars like Mitchell views local laws,
particularly in the present context, as a means (although not explicitly) for privileged
groups in society—whom are tied to the new globalized, “symbolic” economy which
values aesthetics—to rearrange and redefine public spaces as being only for those
whom own property and that this arrangement is the natural order of things (Mitchell,
2003, 190-191).
Other researchers (Ranasinghe & Valverde, 2006; Németh & Ross, 2014) point
to the system’s flaws at procedural level. A frequent criticism is that municipal law
processes get bogged down in delays and complexity that can stall attempts reform
statutes and policies for years—as was seen in the City of Toronto’s homeless shelter
initiative in the early 2000s (Ranasinghe and Valverde, 2006, 339). At times, delays in
the municipal process can be the impact of the phenomenon of NIMBYism (which will
be discussed later in this paper).
Lastly, a systemic issue identified in the literature is that many local and regional
policy processes are led from the top-down. Some government bodies charged with
addressing an issue do so with little contribution from planning staff—whom may be
more aware of socio-economic issues relevant to a case (Németh and Ross, 2014, 17).
As a hypothetical example of this trend, a governing mayor and city council is in power
that is staunchly against supporting a homeless shelter because they believe is
discourages the homeless from working. Planning staff, consisting of urban policy and

homelessness experts, advises supporting the shelter because there is evidence of it
helping the homeless stay employed. Despite the evidence, the mayor and council
move against the shelter because, at the end, it is their choice whether to follow the
advice of their subordinates. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the legal
mechanisms and structures that local governments operate under are prone to issues
that might hamper efforts to either carry out its mandate or reform itself. Even if a mayor
and city council were elected on a Marijuana Party slate, the Canadian legal structure
would restrict them from legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis. In fact, they may
(inadvertently) be forced to take actions supporting War on Drugs efforts.
Class Conflict & Local Laws
Bylaws and local regulations have been highlighted in the literature as
manifestations of class and cultural conflicts, and can be understood as oppressive.
Indeed, much of the literature on municipalities and local governance focus on issues
relating to class-based conflict (particularly low-income populations and racial and
ethnic minorities). In particular, bylaws have been shown to be instruments of
(racialized) class-based oppression negatively affecting low-income populations.
Additionally, bylaws have also come to represent cultural battlegrounds over meaning
(for instance, ideas of property rights between First Nations cultures, settler AngloCanadian culture and recently immigrated Asian cultures). This section is divided into
two subsections that focuses on local laws: as contributing to or manifesting as
oppression and that as a battleground over meaning.
Local laws as oppressive
Local statutes negatively effecting the homeless are a frequent example cited by
scholars in this field. Cities that enact local ordinances aimed at governing “disorder” in
the urban landscape—often with a crime-reduction strategy in mind—all too often do so
while ignoring underlying social issues (such as lack of affordable housing which is a
source of, for example, the presence of homeless people in public spaces) (England,
2008, 3).
Other scholars identify local statutes as functioning to perpetuate oppression
based on race and ethnicity. Bylaws in Seattle, notably SODA (“Stay Out of Drug
Areas”) were found to have excessively targeted African Americans as potential drug
trafficking suspects. The statute permitted police to remove from certain areas people
whom seemed “out of place”—given that so few African Americans live in Seattle at all
automatically makes them appear “out of place” in their area (the American Civil
Liberties Union released statistics showing that three-quarters of SODA arrests were
African-Americans) (England, 2008, 207).
Likewise, SOPA’s (“Stay Out of Prostitution Areas”) effect on sex workers was
pushing them further into hiding—increasing their vulnerability to predatory violence
(Herbert and Beckett, 2009, 18-19). The prohibition of people from public areas has
ironically led them to be prohibited from the very sites where social services (such as
bathrooms, meals and clothing donations) to assist them are located (Herbert and
Beckett, 2009, 19). How and whom enforces local statutes, of course, varies. In the
case of Seattle and its SODA ordinance, certain areas of the city were made to be off-

limits to or restricted from being patronized by people with past drug convictions. Heavy
police presence and surveillance in these areas allow known persons breaking this
order to be arrested by police (England, 2008, 202). Some of these arrests can be
further justified as enforcing compliance of these individuals to their probation or parole
duties (Herbert and Beckett, 2009, 2).
A significant amount of the literature on local law and class/culture oppression
has been based on qualitative methods like interviews and storytelling (Mitchel, 2003;
England, 2008). However, researchers using quantitative methods have arrived at
similar conclusions to their qualitatively-focused colleagues. In Denver, for example,
studies were conducted on how and where local authorities chose to permit businesses
described as LULUs or “locally unwanted land uses” (Németh and Ross, 2014, 6). The
authors highlighted that an overwhelming concentration of LULUs were in two major
areas identified by census tracts as being less affluent or socio-economically
disadvantaged—particularly those with high proportions of Black, Hispanic, Asian and
Native residents (Németh and Ross, 2014, 6). The Denver example demonstrates
evidence of racial and cultural oppression.
Furthermore, residential property owners exercise influence over decisionmaking regarding land-use and relevant statutes (Ranasinghe and Valverde, 2006,
328). The phenomenon of NIMBY or “not in my back yard” (Németh and Ross, 2014, 7)
is a good example of the power of homeowners in municipal politics. City authorities in
Seattle were tasked to decide on the location of social services agencies working
tandem with their punitive policing measures and needed to keep in mind and avoid the
rampant NIMBYism in their jurisdiction (England, 2008, 209). Similarly, a 2002 Toronto
homeless shelter initiative involved NIMBYism. Then city councillor Jack Layton
identified certain community groups, especially more affluent citizens with NIMBY
sentiments, that subverted the needs of Toronto’s homeless population (Ranasinghe
and Valverde, 2006, 338). This mobilization was founded upon fear and anger: fear that
the homeless would cause neighbourhood disorder and anger that—allegedly—the City
of Toronto’s review process for the shelter was made without consultation (Ranasinghe
and Valverde, 2006, 337).
For the most part, land-use laws function to protect property values and minimize
the impact that “undesirable” land-uses have on property values (Ranasinghe and
Valverde, 2006, 327). Local laws and regulations have ideological underpinnings to
them and are meant to displace scrutiny and blame for underlying social problems
(Mitchell, 2003, 178). Often, the ideology that is cited as the foundation for modern-day
oppressive measures is neoliberalism—a right-wing reaction to socially progressive
movements and policies formed in the 1960s (Mitchell, 2003, 164). It is not
unreasonable to think that a prohibitionist/War on Drugs ideology would influence the
development of local land-use regulations to further its cause (future researchers might
be well-advised to explore these links further).
Municipal bylaws and disputes over meaning
Scholars like Nicholas Blomley focus less on municipal legislation themselves
and more so on the underlying ideas—particularly of property and boundaries—that
municipal laws tend to govern. He identified differences in how one treats property

between cultures, based on a study in a Vancouver neighbourhood. Asian respondents
appeared to have more non-individualistic (collectivist) attitudes towards property
compared to their Anglo-Canadian neighbours (Blomley, 2004, 95). The right to build
fences along one’s property also meant different things between these two groups: a
Chinese woman was offended (she understood this to be severing neighbourly ties)
when her white neighbour decided to build a fence between their properties. The white
neighbour was shocked to find out his neighbour felt this way. Thus, demonstrating a
sharp cultural contrast in the meaning of property rights between neighbours (Blomley,
2004, 98).
Blomley states that “[t]he power to define a place can often mean the power to
decide its destiny” (Blomley, 2002, 574). Conflicts over the meaning of property also
include colonial relationships between Western European societies versus North
American Aboriginal societies. In Canada, Western European philosophical notions
favor the view that land (in the state of nature) which is not enclosed and given over to
productive use (such as industry or cultivation) is seen as “waste” and what or how the
land has been used before is irrelevant to its value (Blomley, 2002, 561). Indeed,
Western philosophical views of space view simply land as “an empty vessel existing
prior to the matter which fills it” (Blomley, 2016, 251).
Aboriginal views of land-use (characterized as being mobile and communal) are
viewed through the Western lens to be open to exploitation (Blomley, 2002, 567).
Aboriginal, specifically the Coast Salish of Vancouver, notions of property and land-use
are governed by seasonal use (temporary ownership) as a response to the ever-shifting
availability of an area’s resources. Western culture and law, conversely, require
residents to be permanent and non-moving (Blomley, 2002, 566-567). Whatever the
values of a dominant culture be, thus they serve to underpin and be foundational of the
laws (and bylaws) put into place. The following quote effectively describes how class
and cultural conflict impact laws regulating land: “The power to define a place can often
mean the power to decide its destiny” (Blomley, 574). As such, should a dominating
culture or ideology in an area define (in a prohibitionist tone) their community as
intolerant of certain “outsider” activities and groups of people, it will define their area to
exclude as such.
Discourse & the Drug War
Much of the academic literature is critical of the various government drug policies
that underpin the War on Drugs. There is also an increasing frustration within academia
over the translation of academic scholarship around drug policy into effective legislative
action by governments. Indeed, much of the literature highlights the role that ideological
factors and morality politics play in the shaping of drug policy over the refined academic
knowledge that has been accumulated and presented for governments (Fafard, 2012;
Haden, 2008; Mosher and Yanagisako, 1991; Nadelmann, 1998). When there are
successful changes in drug policy, it is almost always for the purpose of pragmatism
and response to public pressure or brinksmanship (Levine, 2003; Fafard, 2012). Other
critical discourse focuses on the ineffectiveness of drug policy and their failure to
achieve their own goals (Bagley, 1988; Hughes and Stevens, 2010).

Some researchers argue that drug prohibition hampers research by preventing
studies into these outlawed substances that could lead to better treatments for drug
users and other diseases (Haden, 2008, 2). Others point to evidence that the rates of
drug use are not affected by increasing punitive measures against drug use (Hughes
and Stevens, 2010, 999). Indeed, even those few academics like Bagley and
Nadelmann that don’t necessarily oppose drug prohibition in principle take issue with
the way it is being undertaken. For example, Bagley argues that far too much of the
effort is being made towards strict, “supply-side” enforcement rather than more
“demand”-oriented efforts including proper drug education, prevention and rehabilitation
efforts (Bagley, 1988, 193).
Bagley highlights the role “realism” plays in the failure of drug prohibition. He
notes that a realist paradigm holds that “nation-states are key actors in international
politics” and that threats to the system are to be met with the full power of the state
(Bagley, 1988, 195). However, this ignores the real role that non-state actors (like
international market forces and commercial entities) play in nurturing the drug trade and
that many nation-states are not willing to put in an effort to stamp out illegal markets
(Bagley, 1988, 198). Furthermore, drug prohibition has been criticized as being useful
for business, maintaining state control as well as providing excuses (usually aided by
propaganda and demonization) for social ills and, otherwise unjustifiable, violent force
(Levine, 2003, 147).
Regarding the involvement of political concerns or ideology in building drug
policy and related laws as opposed to basing a public narcotics strategy on scientific
data and scholarly work. There are many suggestions or direct assertions that political
ideology of those in power influences the decision-making process of drug regulation
and prohibition. Often these assertions are accompanied with frustration over the lack of
scientific knowledge being utilized in the process.
A frequent example of this frustration is the issue of harm reduction—a model of
drug control that aims to reduce harms (evidence-based and pragmatically-considered)
created by drug use to individual users, families and society as a whole (Haden, 2008,
3). Harm reduction has been described in the literature as a radically tolerant and
pragmatic approach to dealing with prohibition and drug use (Levine, 2003, 149).
Likewise, others emphasizes how drug prohibition itself can work better and more
effectively by focusing on minimizing the negative consequences produced by it
(Nadelmann, 1998, 114). Similarly, other research focuses on other concurrent attempts
to impact the system of drug prohibition and criminalization—such as Drug Treatment
Courts. Such specialized courts operate within the criminal justice system in response
to drug use and emphasize drug users not as criminals but as patients suffering from
the disease of addiction (Lyons, 2014, 291).
Examples of harm reduction strategies include providing clean syringes (to help
reduce and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among users) and methadone.
Furthermore, harm reduction strategies can cut down on the violation of civil liberties,
keep non-violent offenders out of prison and stem disease epidemics resulting from
strict punitive enforcement (Levine, 2003, 149). A frequently cited harm reduction effort
is INSITE—the safe injection site (SIS) in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver—

mentions or alludes to harm reduction goal. However, successfully implementing harm
reduction strategies has required extensive lobbying, protest and aggressive pressure
on public officials by both activists and harm reduction experts (Fafard, 2012, 908).
Currently there are over 75 safe injection sites operating globally but the Downtown
Eastside’s INSITE is the only one in North America (Young, 2011, 87).
Other literature points to successful and beneficial de-prohibition efforts in other
countries such as Portugal (which decriminalized many narcotics in July 2001). Positive
changes in illicit drug use (down in key populations), deaths (down), drug profits (down),
seizures (up) and other items as a result of decriminalization in Portugal were in
contrast to its neighbours (Spain and Italy). Researchers were cautious on whether
decriminalization itself or its implementation created such changes (Hughes and
Stevens, 2010, 1017). Scholars stressed the importance of nuance in the discussion
over drug prohibition and harm reduction as well as making policy decisions based on
ethics as well as research (Hughes and Stevens, 2010, 1018).
Fafard notes that the distribution of scientific knowledge publicly may not be as
effective on drug policy as one would hope (Fafard, 2012, 907). He asserts that a
complex issue like drug policy is affected by political concerns (such as pragmatism)
and differences in ideology more so than what is presented by science (Fafard, 2012,
909). For example, the creation of INSITE—a radical effort—was pragmatic and not
necessarily scientific (they took inspiration from efforts in Switzerland) and health
authorities applied for and received exemption from Canada’s Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act for this undertaking. However, a change in government (centrist Liberal
to right-wing Conservative) saw a change in government ideology that sought to kill
INSITE—no matter the science nor pragmatism over public health and harm reduction.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled in favour of INSITE’s exemption only on the
grounds of individuals’ Charter Rights; drug policy is otherwise unchanged (Fafard,
2012, 906).
Additionally, it has been pointed out that many state-sponsored messages
published in support of prohibition and to get a fearful reaction from the public have
directly and knowingly contradicted evidence from researchers (Haden, 2008, 6). This is
compounded by the fact that scientific reports and recommendations have been
repeatedly ignored by some politicians (Nadelmann, 1998, 121). In the face of this
system, some academics argue for a system of drug policy based on “common sense,
science, public health concerns, and human rights” (Nadelmann, 1998, 112). Others
warn of the danger that a simplified and value-driven drug policy debate can have
because policy based solely in political and moral values lacks the nuance and specifics
provided by expertise (Mosher and Yanagisako, 1991, 314). Furthermore, moral
arguments over drug prohibition have been challenged by researchers by arguing that a
public health-based response ultimately best reflects society’s moral values (Mosher
and Yanagisako, 1991, 315). Moreover, the prohibitionists’ moral arguments have been
challenged by scholars such as Thomas Szasz on the grounds that a drug user has the
right to choose to use drugs or not (he draws upon arguments from the assisted suicide
debate) and that any sort of anti-drug action must be made by persuading the user to
change of his/her own accord (Szasz, 1992, 161-162).

Thus, the literature on drug policy and Drug Prohibition suggests that there is a
continuing struggle between knowledge on the issues and the politicians and
bureaucrats that can translate and implement this knowledge into concrete public policy.
Essentially, there seems to be a divide between what the academic literature advises to
government and what policy is enacted by government. Most researchers appear to
indicate more and more confidence in a change in public attitudes around drug policy.
Thus, from this literature, I view municipal bylaws both as tools for municipalities
to participate in the larger War on Drugs as well as a means that oppresses or
privileges certain classes of citizens over others. Similarly, I view municipal bylaws as
imperfect tools since they are limited in their powers by higher levels of statutes and
law. There is comparatively little work out there on the subject of marijuana as a
municipal regulatory subject as opposed to the criminal law aspects of drug
liberalization. Given the coming changes in drug policy, now is the time to look at how
cities regulate controlled substances and how they came up with what they have
enacted. Moreover, this paper aims to help fill this seemingly empty gap in drug,
municipal law and socio-legal literature. Now I shall discuss the methods I used for this
study.
Methods
I conducted document and discourse analysis of relevant municipal records. This
involved close examination of text and audio-visual records of municipal bylaw
information and proceedings which took place from late January to early March of 2017.
The research was conducted both at municipal archives (for the audio-visual
component) as well as at home using access to Delta’s online digital records database.
These are records that few members of the public ever get a chance to see or even
think about seeing despite technically being available for public scrutiny. As a Delta
resident, I had the ability to reserve time and access these records that were related to
my research interests.
Since I was using document analysis as my primary method, I examined various
municipal records such as: internal emails, memorandums, Council reports (drafted by
staff for members of Delta Council) and statements or quotes given to news media
(where available) that might reveal latent justifications for such bylaws. In addition, I
analyzed and documented direct statements made by Council members as some of
these bylaws (specifically the Controlled Substance Property Bylaw and the Delta
Zoning Bylaw) were being created or amended. During the research I discovered that
the Corporation of Delta did not keep any written transcripts of their council meetings.
Instead, they kept their records (from the 1990s and early 2000s) in VHS. Thus, in the
absence of actual transcripts of proceedings, however, I viewed video recordings of
Delta Council meetings and took hand-written notes.
There are particular reasons why I chose to use a qualitative documentary
analysis for this study. For some of the subject matter, it is likely that many important
individuals like councillors, planners and other city staff might have relocated to other
jobs, retired, etc. since the early 2000s. Indeed, some city councillors referenced to later
on in this paper, for example, have moved on to provincial or non-municipal politics.
Even if they could be contacted, their memories of very specific policy discussions might

not be clear or fully accurate assuming they remember what happened at all—some
might be hesitant to talk about what is still a controversial topic. Furthermore, qualitative
documentary analysis also consists of audio-video content, allowing for the inclusion of
more subjective data that one could also collect from interviews and allow for data that
is more contextual. Subjectivities across time and place may differ for an individual
being interviewed in the present versus who they were when they were recorded 15-20
years ago. Some documentary analyses allow for a clearer snapshot of the past than
some interviews can (although recordings of interviews from the past could have
provided helpful supplementary data).
Documentary analysis allowed for a broader range of information to be
considered and given context that person-to-person interview might lack. Similar
research has been conducted using document analysis methodology by numerous
academics. Researchers conducted analyses on undergraduate health sciences’ syllabi
and study guides at a university in South Africa (Coetzee, Hoffmann, and de Roubaix,
2015, 390-391) to come up with their findings (which they found unsatisfactory
application and education on human research ethics in the studied field). Likewise,
investigative journalists are known to examine and publish findings on government
documents that they have obtained via Access to Information or Freedom of Information
requests made to government departments (Walby and Larsen, 2012, 32).
Before acquiring the videos, I examined the minutes of city council meetings and
reports in order to find out the specific dates of meetings. However, according the
municipal clerk’s office, video recordings of Delta Council meeting have not all been
transferred to a digital storage media format (and were unlikely to be done so in an
appropriate amount of time) and many thousands of hours of footage remain stored on
their original VHS tape copies—of which these are the only known extant copies.
Accessing these recordings was slowed by the fact that, at first, city staff were not sure
where the tapes were stored and recommended that I also contact staff at Delta Cable,
a privately-owned, local television provider which has recorded such proceedings for the
city. However, the director (who had been director for the early 2000s recordings I was
looking for) said that they did not keep their own copies from that particular era and
advised me to check back with the municipality.
Fortunately, city staff contacted told me that they had managed to locate the
tapes and we made arrangements to view their contents. However, the municipal clerk
advised me of the possibility that not all potentially research-valuable meetings would
have necessarily been recorded. She said that such executive or closed meetings were
not available to the public and were unlikely to have been recorded on VHS or
otherwise. I took this potential gap in information into account while conducting my
examination.
Cognizant of the limited number of extant copies, I took extra care in handling
these tapes and with attention to keeping them in working order for later use. Archive
staff assisted me in being able to properly and safely view these video recordings by
providing me with space and the necessary equipment. Initially there were issues in
finding properly functioning equipment for viewing these tapes since use of VHS players
are becoming more infrequent. Before acquiring the tapes, I examined the minutes of

city council meetings and reports in order to find out the specific dates of meetings so
that I only required and played tapes that were relevant and reduced the unnecessary
risk of potential damage or wear of unneeded tapes. Nevertheless, the quality of the
recordings varied greatly as some of them suffered from poor audio and problems with
the video feed (I suspect there were issues in the recording equipment since the player
and tapes appeared to be in perfectly working order).
Most non-VHS recording data was collected primarily collected via access to
publicly available documents including, but not limited to, official policy documents, city
council minutes and others. Many of these are available electronically by searching of
Delta’s online, digital database known as the “Document Center” which is hosted on
delta.civicweb.net (other municipalities in British Columbia are hosted on this network
via their internet subdomain names). Information collection was also made through
direct requests to the municipal clerk’s office and visits to the local municipal archives.
The most important documents will be the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw
(CSPB) and the Delta Zoning Bylaw (DZB) themselves, but these were the starting
points from which related documents will be searched for. I was initially concerned that
the web database may not have the necessary advanced search capabilities in order to
narrow down categories such as the year of production. However, adequate search
functions existed and were used accordingly. Searches of the municipal documents
database involved inputting specific search terms such as “marihuana” (this term was
frequently used by government and it became necessary to adjust my own language by
spelling marijuana with an “h”) and using narrowing search functions to dispose of
documents that were either repetitive or not useful. Reports made by municipal staff to
Delta Council were among the most useful documents as they contained information on
the context and proposed ideas for the bylaws as well as specific examination of the
bylaws as they were in development. Not all documents obtained were found to be
relevant or useful to this research. Some documents were simply records of a document
having been read or were internal letters/memos informing other members of the
municipal staff that a bylaw has been adopted (with little to no other relevant information
contained within them).
News articles relevant to my research were collected using a variety of methods:
for news articles from the early 2000s (when print media was still more dominant than
online content) I utilized news media search engines provided by the Kwantlen
Polytechnic University Library—specifically the search engine Canadian NewsStream.
For more current articles, simple Google news searches were used. In both of these
methods, it was necessary to input specific search terms in order to find appropriate
articles. For example, the following query, “(marijuana grow-ops) AND bylaw AND
Delta”, was entered—with full text and English-language options—in order to find
newspaper articles that fit this specified category. Online news media had the
advantage of being able to provide hyperlinks to related articles or source content that
journalists were referencing.
The data analysis focused on two different bylaws representing two different
categories of the regulation of marijuana: the first focused on a bylaw intended to
address the phenomenon of illegal marijuana growing operations. This bylaw is called
the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw of 2004 and analysis involved examining
audio-visual recordings of city council meetings on the topic as well as with official

written documentation. The second section focused on a bylaw intended to regulate
medicinal cannabis activities: specifically, the Delta Zoning Bylaw which, since it
regulates land-use for virtually all categories in the municipalities, contains provisions
specific to commercial activities involving the medicinal use of cannabis. Analysis of it
involved examining documentation of its development and application (for which there
are specific examples from both municipal databases as well as from the provincial
judiciary).
Printouts were made of some documents so that any key observations can be
made in pen, pencil and highlighter. By using physical copies, I was able to arrange and
organize my time so that I could focus on one section and not get distracted by working
on the other (I did this extensively while conducting my literature review). This is a
personal organizational arrangement of mine that I find helps me organize time more
effectively. Analysis of data involved note-taking and notes in the margins of the
documents—the coding will open and be oriented more towards identifying latent
content. Important sections or passages were highlighted and saved to be included in
the final project draft.
Relevant court cases were accessed via the Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Library’s access to Canadian legal databases as well as through links provided in online
news media articles (an ability that traditional printed media obviously lacks). Further
information and commentary was also obtained through local news media (for instance,
local newspaper Delta Optimist). Looking for information on the CSPB, I made an
additional search for records post-2004 for the purpose of seeking information on
challenges, amendments, enforcement and other relevant items made after the bylaw
came into force.
Since this is information used in this research that is publicly available and in the
public domain (created and published by a government institution) there can be no
issue regarding any breach in research ethics. However, while research ethics is
normally concerned with minimizing and/or preventing harm done to human subjects,
there ought to be similar ethics discussions on records that are at heightened risk of
loss or damage and are either extremely difficult or impossible to replace. The loss or
damage of the medium results in the information becoming lost. Such information is the
common property of all citizens whose ownership functions to hold their elected officials
accountable and being able to make informed democratic decisions based on this
information. Therefore a study like this one is needed to expand the field of research
ethics to include provisions for more collective concerns—minimizing harms to
individual research subjects but also minimizing harm to culture, society and institutions
of democracy.
Research Findings
There are two bylaws extant in Delta that address the production and
manufacture of marijuana. One is the 2004 Controlled Substance Property Bylaw (or
CSPB) which acts under definitions of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
(CDSA) (CSPB, 2004, 2) and includes the following prohibition: “No person, owner or
occupant of property shall cause, permit or allow any property to become or remain a
place for the manufacture, trade, use, sharing, sale or barter of a controlled substance”
(CSPB, 2004, 3). The bylaw includes provisions allowing for municipal enforcement

inspection, cutting off of utilities and monetary penalties (CSPB, 2004, 3-6). The
financial disincentives introduced specifically were fines of $5000 per day of continued
non-compliance. The primary activities that the CSPB regulates are clandestine
marijuana growing operations—targeting, in particular, the rental property owners on
whose property activities take place (Corporation of Delta, 2004, pp.2-4, Attachment B).
The official purpose behind the CSPB is as follows:
“WHEREAS the Community Charter as amended, provides that a municipal
council may by bylaw:
a) regulate, prohibit and impose requirements for protecting and enhancing
the well being of the community relating to nuisances, disturbances and other
noxious or offensive business activities; b) provide for the recovery of costs
incurred by the municipality in effecting compliance at the expense of a person
who has failed to comply with the bylaw” (Delta Controlled Substance Property
Bylaw No. 6200, 2004, p. 1).
The use of marijuana or cannabis for medicinal purposes may be not be
prohibited (as per the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act) but Delta’s use of municipal zoning laws
effectively enforces a prohibitionist agenda. The second bylaw in this study is the Delta
Zoning Bylaw No. 2750 or DZB. This bylaw, works in conjunction with other municipal
ordinances (such as those regulating business licenses), as it regulates and enforces
other aspects of marijuana prohibition. Specifically, this bylaw (No. 2750) contains
provisions restricting and prohibiting (commercial) land-use within the boundaries of the
Corporation of Delta for the purposes of medical marijuana manufacture and
distribution. I studied these bylaws in order to search for the justifications or reasoning
processes behind them as well as what sort of impacts (class, legal, economic or
otherwise) that they have had on the community.
The ability to for the Delta Zoning Bylaw to regulate land-use with regards to
medicinal marijuana was made possible through a bylaw amendment (Bylaw No. 7313)
which prohibited the use of land, buildings or structures for the growing, cultivations,
drying, testing, packaging, storage, distribution and/or the sale of marijuana in all zones
with the exception Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) where it does not apply
(Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment A, 2). This amendment was done by
adding new definitions to the Part II General Interpretations section of the Delta Zoning
Bylaw (eg. “Medical Marihuana Production”, etc.) and under Part III, Operative Clauses
explicitly prohibiting, under the sub-heading “Prohibited Uses in All Zones”, “Production
of Medical Marihuana” and “Medical Marihuana Research and Development”
(Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014, 2-3).
The amendment to the DZB (amendment No. 7313) initially came with a sister
regulation—7314—that was to prohibit medical marijuana production inside of the
Agricultural Land Reserve but was denied for reasons I will discuss later at length
(Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014, 2). However, this denial as well as the
wording of Bylaw 7313 did open a loophole for medical marijuana production provided
that, on the Agricultural Land Reserve, the property where production would take place

be classified as a Comprehensive Development Zone (Corporation of Delta, Council
Report, 2015, 1). As such, any proposed medical marijuana production facility would
require application to Council for a site-specific rezoning amendment (Corporation of
Delta, Council Report, 2014, 4).
In conducting my research, I explored justifications used by members of local
government to support these sorts of marijuana-restrictive bylaws and related legal
activities enacted by the Corporation of Delta (as noted in the below sections). Using
strategies I mentioned earlier in the methods section of this paper, I searched for the
informal/latent justifications, reasoning and thought processes found outside of the
formal justification (that is, the official reasons) and the announcements of them that
one can read in official municipal statements and from the bylaws themselves (as well
as in the minutes of the meetings themselves).
Bylaws for illegal grow-ops
I watched and researched the meetings that involved the CSPB proposal and
enactment since they are really the earliest bylaws in Delta that seem to deal with the
subject of marijuana—specifically with the wave of marijuana growing operations raids
of the early 2000s. In researching this bylaw, both pre- and post-enactment, themes of
Council professionalism, frustration and regional tension, and issues requiring
amendments to the bylaw.
i.

Professionalism
One particular topic of discussion that came up repeatedly in the CSPB
proceedings in Delta Council was the idea of using these prohibitionist bylaws as a
means of generating a regular income or as a cost recovery mechanism for drug law
enforcement operations conducted by Delta. However, from my observations (of video
content) there seemed to be a noticeable difference in how members of council (which
included Mayor, councillors and some of their staff) treated the content as serious. It is
clear that some councillors took the matter of bylaws as a mechanism of drug law
enforcement more seriously than others. For example, Cllr. Guy Gentner and Mayor
Lois Jackson had an uneventful discussion regarding grow-op home seizures, provincial
police board jurisdiction and proposing that city staff draft a report on federal drug
legislation. Fellow Cllr. Scott Hamilton seemed to take this discussion down a more
comedic road. Indeed, at two different meetings of Delta Council, Cllr. Hamilton made
comments that quickly became jokes about the rather serious subject at hand. His first
comment in June 16th, 2003 meeting went as follows: “Given new sophistication and
upscale nature of grow-operations these days. Some of the people are setting up in
$3/4 million homes—It might be a whole new revenue source for us. So….” Cllr.
Hamilton then laughs and is followed by the rest of Council in laughing as well—to
which Mayor Lois Jackson replies somewhat nervously: “Be careful what you wish.”
(Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
Cllr. Hamilton made this seemingly careless comment again at the September 8th
Council meeting where he goes: “It could be a great revenue source, you never know”
after which he laughs and smiles. But unlike the previous meeting, Mayor Jackson was
quick to correct the councillor as to the seriousness of the subject. It is disquieting to
think that in the drafting stage of bylaws containing very real financial consequences

some members of a city council might take this process lightly. Even more troubling is
the implication that such a bylaw might be considered as a regular revenue source for a
city. For this to be a regular source of revenue would necessitate the continuing
existence of clandestine marijuana grow-ops being set up in residential neighbourhoods
and keeping them at risk—completely negating an otherwise prohibitionist statute’s
raison d'être. Likewise, the aforementioned 2006 evaluation of the CSPB showed an
overall negative decline in the number of marijuana growing operations detected and
responded to by enforcement officials via non-compliance notices (Corporation of Delta,
Council Report, 2006, 2-3)—further putting into question the long-term viability of this as
a municipal revenue source that Cllr. Hamilton seemed to imply.
In these proceedings there are also examples of rhetoric that appears oriented in
favor of War on Drugs polices and attitudes. In the Delta Council meeting on June 16th,
2003, Cllr. Guy Gentner asks Mayor Lois Jackson for her comment, on the basis of her
being chair of the police board, on a proposed report from staff on municipal
implications on federal drug property confiscations. She states that Delta has a “zero
tolerance level relative to [marijuana] grow-operations” (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
In the Delta Council meeting on September 8th later that year, Cllr. Hamilton, when
discussing previous bylaw fines imposed by the neighbouring City of Surrey in their
drug-control bylaws, he noted that the average $1500 fine for property owners in
violation of the ordinance seemed “a little light” and considered the idea of increasing
that amount for their own bylaw (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
In a consultation meeting on February 9th, 2004, Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford
made a surprising comment on the proposed Controlled Substances Bylaw:
“Unfortunately, and I shouldn’t say unfortunately, I need to say that the driving
force behind this particular bylaw is the planning department and I’m very much
in support of this and it’s a great idea. I wish we had thought of it ourselves. I like
to think we’re pretty proactive with things. But they were on top of this” and he
described this proposal as a “huge victory” (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2004).
Cessford also discussed how his department had been dealing with the issue of
marijuana grow operations during the regional Operation “Bud-Out” and the risks
involved in order to “take these things down”. Despite the casual use of paramilitarystyle language in discussing counter-narcotics operations, the Chief, in reference to the
reduced number of grow-ops found since the start of “Bud-Out” (from over 200 to less
than 25), made a surprising remark that some of the grow-ops police had raided
“weren’t that active” when they were found (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2004). The casual
use of austere and militant War on Drugs-style rhetoric in the development of the CSPB
might impact how seriously members of municipal council will discuss potential
outcomes of the bylaw, outcomes that could have serious human and financial
consequences to those involved should the bylaw not be enforced with due care.
ii.

Municipal Frustration & Regional Tensions
Through analyzing council meetings footage, there were indications of
dissatisfaction and frustration on the part of members of Delta Council in regards to
higher levels of government (federal, provincial and the judiciary). In addition, there was
evidence of regional tensions. On September 8th 2003, Mayor Lois Jackson responded

in a disciplinarily manner to Cllr. Hamilton (who had joked about cost recovery of police
drug enforcement operations being a new revenue source), the Mayor gave this
informative speech on the limited powers of municipal government: “We tend to forget at
the local level that we don’t have any status…In dealing with the federal government,
they deal with provincial governments. They do not deal with local governments. We are
not entrenched in the Constitution. We are not a recognized local level of governance”
(words italicized for emphasis) (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003). Her statement is
related to her comments at the previous Council meeting on June 16 th, 2003 where, on
the subject of obtaining shares in the proceeds of crime, she stated that allocation of
benefits were the responsibility of the BC provincial government. She further highlights
problematic situation where money that ought to be used to assist local governments,
whom are “going to the absolute “-nth” degree to protect the citizenry”, is going to other
jurisdictions. She further indicated issues with fighting these problems in the court
system “the way they are today” (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
In addition to simple frustration with Canada’s government superstructure, there
appeared in the September 8th, 2003 meeting of Delta Council to be an underlying
attitude of regional rivalry apparent to viewers (Gulyas, September 10, 2003, p. 5). At
this meeting Jackson also shared with Council a “tongue-in-cheek” (her words)
experience of hers at the 2000 Canadian Federation of Municipalities conference in
Halifax, Nova Scotia. She reported that representatives of cities from the rest of Canada
“didn’t know what we were talking about” when Delta and other BC municipalities
discussed the topic of marijuana grow-ops. Mayor Jackson concludes her story with this
remark:
“Quite interesting to note that now that Central Canada, Ontario, the Prairie
Provinces and Quebec are experiencing large grow-operations—suddenly the
federal government has taken some action.” (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
What is clear is that municipal government discourse of marijuana growing
operations tend to exhibit underlying regional rivalries and alienation. Relevant to this
tendency is a frustration with the overall structure of government authority, particularly
when it comes to the ability (or lack thereof) of municipal/local governments to be
recognized by federal authorities. Regional rivalries and feelings of alienation and
frustration with governmental authority has both cultural (differences in zeitgeist and
geographical inequalities) and practical (financial concerns and inequalities in power)
origins.
iii.

Continuous Evaluations & Amendments
The 2006 evaluation of the bylaw by Delta city staff provides insight into the
effectiveness of the bylaw as well as to unforeseen problems with the bylaw that
necessitated amendments. On February 24th, 2006, two years after the CSPB was
originally passed, the bylaw underwent an evaluation by the Corporation’s Community
Planning and Development Department. The evaluation report noted that since the
bylaw’s passing, 53 properties (27 in 2004, 20 in 2005 and 6 in 2006 before the review’s
publishing) were issued non-compliance notices with 41 of them successfully meeting
requirements for remediation (that is, becoming compliant with the bylaw so they can be
re-occupied by potential tenants), 12 other properties had not remediated with the city. It

is important to note that only one other property was found to be in contravention of the
bylaw. And, that property did not, in fact, have a grow operation on it (Corporation of
Delta, Council Report, 2006, 2-3).
Corporation staff regularly visits non-compliant properties to ensure the notice
remains posted and the building is unoccupied. They do not enter buildings without prior
arrangements with owners and assess their occupancy based on residency indicators
(such as lights, vehicles present, removal of “No Occupancy” sign, etc.) (Corporation of
Delta, Council Report, 2006, 3). Inspection service charges include billings for regular
and overtime pay for police officers involved in the relevant marijuana grow operation
closure—about $22,050 had been collected since the bylaw’s adoption (Corporation of
Delta, Council Report, 2006, 4). However, inspection efforts had been hampered by
unresponsive owners, purposefully inaccurate contact information, undeliverable mailing
addresses and non-cooperation from owners (such as houses being boarded up to
prevent inspection). Staff highlighted these barriers to bylaw compliance and stated they
would report to Council regarding potential amendments to the bylaw (Corporation of
Delta, Council Report, 2006, 3-4). Additionally, as late as 2014, amendments to the
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw and the Municipal Ticketing Information Bylaw were
required in order for bylaw inspectors and Delta police to be able to issue fines to noncommercial medicinal marijuana growing operations without the risk of lengthy, costly
court processes (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014).
This is important to my research in that it highlights potential, unintended flaws
that even the most thoroughly discussed bylaw proposal can be affected by. Although
bylaws, particularly those regulating controversial economic activities (such as
cannabis-growing), are regularly and diligently subjected to evaluation and amendment,
it is troubling know that such possibilities of thwarting the bylaws were not anticipated by
staff or by Council.
Medicinal Cannabis and Zoning
I read various council reports, memos and news items involving details of the
Delta Zoning Bylaw provisions concerning medicinal cannabis-related businesses and
commercial enterprises. It was here that I found documents relevant to two rezoning
applications for businesses intending to establish facilities for the industrial production of
medicinal cannabis on Delta’s Agricultural Land Reserve. Likewise, I examined news
reports, memos and the Supreme Court of British Columbia case file on the
WeeMedical medicinal cannabis dispensary in North Delta—a business enterprise that
was attempting provide medical cannabis to eligible customers in the area and was
ordered closed by the municipality or incur fines.
i.

Production/manufacturing activity
The Delta Zoning Bylaw, as mentioned in earlier, prohibits medicinal cannabis
production outside of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). Should an entity or business
decide to establish medicinal cannabis production on the ALR, the municipality requires
an application for rezoning to be made and approved (with appropriate feedback from
the public). Delta Council opened discussion and feedback from local businesses,
organizations and other members of the public for proposed projects involving zoning or
business license applications (such as establishing commercial medical cannabis

manufacturing facilities in the Tilbury Industrial Park). The Document Centre contained
several PDF files which included some of the emailed responses that the Corporation
received. Two major medical marijuana production projects requiring rezoning
applications were proposed to the Corporation of Delta by Canpacific Engineering
Incorporated, for a business at 7331 Vantage Way operating under the subsidiary Delta
Pharms Incorporated and International Herbs Medical Marijuana Limited (for a business
at 1668 Foster’s Way) respectively (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2015, 1)
(Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, 2) (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2016, 1). It
is here that one could suggest that prohibitionist responses affecting the decisionmaking process would emerge as a factor.
Unfortunately there was little material in Delta’s government document database
that discussed the Foster’s Way application for an industrial marijuana production
facility similar to the one proposed at the Vantage Way site. This is likely due to the
Foster’s Way medicinal cannabis production project being more recent. Information on
the Vantage Way application for establishing a medicinal cannabis production
operation, on the other hand, was more substantial and thus this case is the focus. A
memorandum from the Director of the Community Planning and Development
department was sent on June 17, 2014 to the Mayor and Council, in regards to the
Vantage Way project, with attached public correspondence regarding proposed medical
marijuana production facility. This memo was preceded by a report some weeks earlier
on May 28th that summarized the contents of the memo. Only one letter out of eight
from the public and business community was supportive of the proposed rezoning. The
rest of the letters ranged in response from concern to outright hostility.
The May 28th report indicated overall concerns, reported by business owners,
associated with an industrial medical marijuana facility. Specifically, they highlighted
issues with odor, air quality reduction, potential criminal activity, employee safety and
falling property values (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014, 3). However, the
report lacked the specificity or informality that the memo contained. In the memo itself, it
was found many responses were not necessarily against the concept of pharmaceutical
cannabis production but rather voiced oppositional concerns over the possibility of
managing and regulating such a facility effectively. They regularly expressed concern
over inventory control and frequently referred to fears of unintended crime and “misuse”
(Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment, 3-4). Another based their concerns on
the uncertainty of whether the facility would have the same type types of emissions
controls found in heavy industry (Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment, 4).
One such respondent even went so far as to clarify that they deemed the Delta Pharms
owners themselves to be “men of character and trustworthy” (Corporation of Delta,
Memo, 2014, Attachment, 3). A short letter by another business owner said simply that
they “respectfully request” that the rezoning be dropped. That said, some letters
(including the aforementioned) did not actually give reason or justification for their
opposition (Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment A, 5, 9).
Other responses by Tilbury business owners contained statements indicating a
more hostile skepticism. One respondent voiced their opposition to the project and
wrote quotation marks around the word “medical” when referring to medical marijuana
(Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment, 7) which seemed to suggest (stringent

government regulation and scientific research notwithstanding) that the whole concept
of medicinal cannabis is inherently fraudulent. Another respondent stated that such a
business would result in “lots of undesirable characters hanging around the area”
(Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014, Attachment, 6). A business owner that chose to
remain anonymous disparagingly referred to the proposing as a “grow-op” and justified
their stance stating: “I’ve heard nothing, but bad things about them and we certainly
don’t want that type of activity within the Park![sic]” (Corporation of Delta, Memo, 2014,
Attachment, 8). Additionally, most of these responses (both mild and hostile) use, in
some variation, the phrase “this type of business” (emphasis added) to refer to a
medical marijuana enterprise.
ii.
Retail and distributor activity
Delta’s zoning bylaw has had negative legal and financial consequences for those
establishing retail operations for medicinal cannabis. The provincial court case Delta v.
WeeMedical was a specific example of bylaw enforcement being utilized as a means to
regulate and minimize the presence of medicinal cannabis. In this case, the commercial
enterprise being regulated is a medicinal cannabis dispensary in North Delta operated
by the WeeMedical Dispensary Society.
In correspondence with the Corporation of Delta, WeeMedical appealed
Council’s decision to deny their business license on several grounds with these most
notable: their status and mandate as a non-profit society; they were following
appropriate health, safety and patient privacy procedures; over 300 people had signed
up indicating a local need for it; the lack of ease of accessing this medication; the
hypocrisy of denying medicinal cannabis while permitting tobacco and alcohol; they did
not keep any cannabis products on the premises after-hours; and the fact that the only
legal method of obtaining medical cannabis is by Canada Post from licensed producers.
Critically, they argued that the zoning law definitions of “Medical Marihuana Production”
and “Medical Marihuana Research and Development” were not applicable to
WeeMedical as they only operated as a retail-level intermediary between patient and
producer. WeeMedical gave a final appeal on the grounds that the alternative to their
existence was to put patients in danger by purchasing from criminal sources and that
the changing legal landscape in Canada necessitates Delta to act in a progressive
manner towards medicinal marijuana (M.J. Liu, business communication, May 12,
2016).
The Property Use and Compliance Department reported back to Council 6 days
after WeeMedical filed its appeal. They recommended that Council uphold its decision
to denial their business license and continue to fine the applicant for not ceasing
business operations (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2016, 1). This decision was
made on the basis that the Corporation does not issue business licenses for unlawful
activities (for which they refer to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act of Canada as
foundation). They clarified that definition of “Medical Marihuana Production” found in the
DZB included the use of a property and/or the buildings on a property for storage,
distribution or sale of medicinal cannabis. Property Use and Compliance also noted that
the WeeMedical Dispensary Society had not obtained (under the Marihuana for Medical
Purposes Regulations) appropriate licensing from Health Canada.

There was also the issue of the WeeMedical facility being too close in proximity
to a nearby pharmacy (Naz’s Pharmacy), the Delta Zoning Bylaw also prohibits drug
stores, polyclinics and pharmacies from being less than 400 metres apart (WeeMedical
and Naz’s were within 200 metres of each other) (Corporation of Delta, Council Report,
2016, 2). Likewise, WeeMedical’s status as a non-profit society did not, under British
Columbia’s Society Act, exclude them from carrying out business and, likewise, did not
exclude them from the jurisdiction of the Business Licence Bylaw (Corporation of Delta,
Council Report, 2016, 3).
The owners of WeeMedical brought a legal challenge against the Corporation.
However, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Corporation of
Delta against the dispensary over ticketed fines in contravention of their zoning and
business license bylaws. Despite being denied a license by the city, the dispensary had
continued to operate at their location and incurred approximately $11,900 in fines from
municipal bylaw enforcement. Lawyers for WeeMedical argued to put a hold on
proceedings citing potential changes in law coming from then-concurrent legal cases
(which will be addressed in the Discussion section) in the federal court system.
However, BC Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick stood with her decision based
on the legal landscape of the (relative) present—upholding the law prohibiting marijuana
dispensaries: “Until that happens, all people in British Columbia, including WeeMedical,
are required to obey those laws” (Delta v. WeeMedical) (Smith, 2016). In addition to
being restrictive of allowing marijuana-related retail business into a municipality’s
commercial zones, it seems clear from the research is that the courts are not flexible or
willing to take progressive actions even if consciously aware that the laws are about to
change.
Statements to Media
Local news media (digital/online and in traditional print) analyzed and recorded
statements and opinions by local government officials on the subject of these
ordinances on marijuana. The reason for looking at local media is to search for and
analyze discourse on these bylaws with emphasis on quotes or statements made by the
politicians involved. At times, quotes made by local politicians leave no doubt as what
justifies their governing decisions.
Unfortunately, news articles from the period leading up to the creation of the
Controlled Substances Property Bylaw did not contain very much subject matter or
opinions from council-members or other officials that was unknown from looking at
video-recorded Council proceedings. Local and community news sources from that time
that I looked at included articles that appeared in the Delta Optimist (Delta’s sole local
print newspaper since the dissolution of the South Delta Leader), The Vancouver Sun
and The Province. What does come up as a repeated theme is the framing of the bylaw
and the issue of marijuana grow-ops in the context of health and safety and, in
particular, as a fight to save the community.
Cllr. Robert Campbell was quoted as saying that a bylaw that addressed
marijuana grow-ops was a “necessary step” because of the neighbourhood hazards
created by these drug operations wherever they are found (Delta Optimist, February 11,
2004, p. 3). Mayor Lois Jackson was quoted in the Province saying that it would be

“necessary to sell out a neighbour to save a neighbourhood” (Dawson, April 16, 2000, p.
A12) while in The Vancouver Sun she was quoted as saying that grow-ops had been
allowed to move and start “destroying the neighbourhoods” because members of the
community have “lost touch with one another” (Bellett, May 15, 2000, p. B1/Front). An
idea highlighted in some of the news articles that rarely came up in conversation during
proceedings is the idea that this type of bylaw can act as a “disincentive to discourage
these facilities from becoming established” (Delta Optimist, February 11, 2004, p. 3).
Such statements, however, drew criticism from BC Civil Liberties Association executive
director John Westwood—who found such a “snitch” mentality to be lacking in any sort
of sense of community. He argued that these sorts of anti-grow-op initiatives (where one
“snitched” on one’s own neighbours) were “police-based” rather than “communitybased” and were of a different sort from traditional community anti-crime programs such
as Block Watch (Dawson, April 16, 2000, p. A12).
Articles that are relevant to the Delta Zoning Bylaw, such as zoning project
proposal processes and municipal responses to wider government changes, were
easier to find. Although her comments were focused on the wider issue of marijuana
use rather than on municipal actions regarding the drug, Lois Jackson commented on
the federal Allard v. Canada ruling (which will become more relevant in the Discussion
section) with concern over the speed and uncertainty associated with legalization. She
expressed the specific concern over the potential issue that industrial production of
cannabis on agricultural land might displace food production from the land’s use.
Jackson gave a simple warning: “We have to be careful what we create” before urging
readers to wait for the (federal) Liberals’ centralized cannabis market scheme similar to
liquor (Browne, 2016).
Councillor Bruce McDonald, in the vote to approve for third reading the Delta
Pharms growing operation in Tilbury, noted that, aside from the business meeting the
appropriate procedural criteria, he had a deceased friend who he states could have
benefit from medicinal cannabis. At that same vote, however, Mayor Lois Jackson
stated, in opposition, that Council had not considered the interests of neighbouring
businesses and argued that “If this was proposed for a residential area, we would have
paid more attention to what they had to say” (Gyarmati, 2014).
This claim by the Mayor runs counter to assurances made by Delta Pharms
president David Rose of the involvement of Health Canada and Delta Police in ensuring
regulatory compliance. He furthermore argued that his company be properly referred to
as a pharmaceutical company and not a “grow op” (Gyarmati, 2014)—which would be a
reasonable description from an objective viewpoint. Despite her opposition, she did
state that other communities ought to take on their “fare share” of businesses of this
type (Gyarmati, 2014)—not necessarily opposing licensed medical marijuana growing
enterprises from existing, just not in Delta. This is reminiscent of NIMBY.
In short, the findings of this research uncovered important themes to consider in
the study of municipal bylaws that are specific to the regulation of cannabis-related
activities. There are multiple examples of prohibitionist-oriented rhetoric being used by
either public officials or members of the community to justify regulatory efforts or to
repudiate proposed changes to the prohibitionist system that is in place. However, this

was not always so as there were also examples (from members of Council mostly) of
rhetoric that defied traditional talking-points defending marijuana prohibition. Indeed, not
all prohibitionist rhetoric was necessarily made on the basis on the drug’s immorality but
on concerns that were reasonable and progressively-oriented.
For the CSPB, which penalizes land-use for illegal marijuana grow-ops in
residential areas, there were frequently issues with how seriously some members of
Council approached or discussed the subject of such residential property seizures and
fines leading to other members disciplining them. Additionally, meetings discussing the
development of the CSPB exposed clear frustration by members of Delta Council with
higher levels of government regarding the limited powers that municipalities can
leverage with provincial and federal authorities for what they believe are their dues.
Furthermore, this bylaw contained flaws that required amendments and updates to be
added in the years post-enactment. Likewise, there was also frustration and alienation
with leaders of other Canadian regions whom, unlike municipalities in British Columbia,
were unconcerned with the growing problem of marijuana grow-ops in the early-2000s.
Similar emotions were also directed towards the federal government in Ottawa which,
as mentioned early, appeared to not take action on grow-ops until they reached the
central and eastern regions of Canada. What these particular findings suggest are the
existence of East versus West cultural tensions, alienations and rivalries on the subject
of drug policy—belief in the hegemony of one region over another is also possible.
The correspondence on proposed projects relevant to the DZB, which contain
provisions imposing prohibitions and limitations on land-use for medicinal cannabis,
similarly show evidence of prohibitionist/War on Drugs ideology and, sometimes vitriolic,
rhetoric. This was especially so in public correspondence between landowners and the
city on the subject of a proposed industrial development hosting medicinal cannabis
growing facilities. For a dispensary in North Delta, correspondence between itself and
the municipality displayed more of a dispute over legal definitions. Whereas the
dispensary made arguments by both challenging the actual meaning of land-use
definitions in the bylaw as well as appealing on situational grounds (such as the number
of people reliant on the drugs, the risks of having them turn to illegal markets and the
moral imperative for progressive change in a fast-changing legal landscape on
cannabis), the municipality took a strict, black-letter position on the bylaw’s definitions. It
made no attempt to respond to extra-legal considerations in favor of relaxing bylaw
enforcement.
The findings of this research outlined the development of marijuana-related
bylaws such as the Controlled Substance Property Bylaw and relevant sections of the
Delta Zoning Bylaw. These bylaws each address different aspects of marijuana
production including illegal residential grow-ops and medicinal production in industrial
and commercial zones. In the bylaws’ development, it became clear that there were
ongoing issues of how professionally or seriously some officials seemed to handle
grow-op discussions as well as limited War on Drugs-style rhetoric. There were also
clear indications of regional tension and frustration with higher levels of government
(and the political structure behind it). The bylaws were also continuously amended due
to problems with enforcement. Rezoning applications and business license appeals
were also found that were filed on behalf of their business owners (whom were involved

in medicinal cannabis production and distribution) so that they could legally operate in
their requested zone (as long as they were within the boundaries of the Agricultural
Land Reserve). In these rezoning applications/appeals, evidence of prohibitionist
ideology were more apparent. Ideological tendencies represented in media were mixed
as city officials and commentators gave varying perspectives of the issue of recreational
and medicinal cannabis. Overall, extra-legal justifications for these bylaws were varied:
practical concerns were as prevalent as prohibitionist ideals.
Discussion
Legal ecosystems-Division of Responsibility
It is not unreasonable for the regulations of the manufacture and use of
marijuana to be classified into different categories. This division of responsibilities leads
to the formation of what could be referred to as a legal ecosystem of various related and
interdependent regulations. Laws and regulations exist and interact alongside each
other at the local level and with relevant regulations or instructions from higher levels
and branches of government to maintain a specific system of policies and/or political
ideals. In my research, the legal ecosystem exists to maintain a system of drug
prohibition. In maintaining the system of drug prohibition, the legal ecosystem tacitly
upholds a prohibitionist ideology. “Legal ecosystem” is related to but not the same as
“legal landscape”. In this study, “legal landscape” refers to the character of the legal
system such as what is legal or illegal. This is distinct from “legal ecosystem” which
refers to the internal relationships between regulations themselves regardless of the
“legal landscape” it exists on.
The separation of responsibilities regarding bylaws regulating marijuana grow
operations, like the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw, and bylaws governing land
use pertaining to medicinal cannabis production and sale—Delta Zoning Bylaw No.
2750, 1977 forms a separate legal ecosystem. This legal ecosystem can be observed in
two respects: a local ecosystem that is strictly intra-municipality; an overall ecosystem
involving the interaction of the local as well as higher levels of government law (federal,
provincial and judiciary).
The legal ecosystem, in this case, exists to propagate and coordinate a
prohibitionist system that is supportive of the overall War on Drugs. Local bylaws are
the manifestation of national and international prohibitionist policies on the local
government level and provide direct support for agencies engaged in enforcement
efforts through their power to regulate land-use (other aspects of drug policy are the
responsibility of higher levels of government). It could be said that local bylaws fill a
“gap” left behind by other levels of government as they seek to regulate responsibilities
that are mandated to them by legislation or the Constitution Act.
The justifications and purposes behind the existence of the bylaws forming this
legal ecosystem are discussed critically. Critiques of the purpose and functioning of the
bylaws are centred on differences between the formal (the stated purpose in the
regulations themselves) and the informal purposes as found in examination of relevant
audio, print and digital documents. The effects of these bylaws are also discussed in

relation to how they permit an economic environment that is favourable to the interests
of industrial agriculture or agribusiness.
Jurisdiction and responsibilities (Intra-Municipal)
The Controlled Substance Property Bylaw (CSPB) and the Delta Zoning Bylaw
(DZB) exist in conjunction with each other and further interact with various lower-order
municipal bylaws that regulate and enforce other aspects of local economy where
marijuana is present. However, there are certainly areas that more involve one of the
two bylaws over the other. With regards to the CSPB, the focus is on illegal marijuana
growing operations in residential areas. Meanwhile, the relevant amendments in the
Delta Zoning Bylaw apply primarily to operations involved in the federally permitted area
of medicinal cannabis.
Some of the definitions in the original CSPB come from other bylaws, such as the
definition for “occupancy permit” as referenced in the Delta Building/Plumbing Bylaw
No. 6060, 2002 (Delta Controlled Substance Property Bylaw No. 6200, 2004, Part 1—
Introductory Provision 5, 2). Additionally, as mentioned earlier the CSPB also works
alongside ordinances such as the Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw and the Municipal
Ticketing Information Bylaw (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014). The bylaw
does not exist and operate on its own. The require interaction with and the conditions
established by other bylaws and regulations from the same municipality, specifically
those pertaining to building codes, ticketing and inspection, to operate legally and
effectively. Operating in an appropriate legal ecosystem is a necessity for the existence
and continued operation of the Controlled Substance Property Bylaw.
The use of marijuana or cannabis for medicinal purposes may be exempted, but
are not totally uninfluenced by national marijuana prohibition. In the case of Delta,
marijuana use is tightly controlled and is just as subject to regulations as illegal
marijuana growing operations are. Only in this case, the city utilizes zoning regulations,
specifically the Delta Zoning Bylaw No. 2750, 1977 Amendment (Prohibition of Medical
Marihuana Facilities – P13-10) Bylaw No. 7313. 2014, to enforce a prohibitionist
agenda. Like the CSPB, the Delta Zoning Bylaw operates and interacts alongside other
municipal regulations such as the Delta Business Licence Bylaw No. 4019, 1986.
Jurisdiction and responsibilities—Extra-Municipal
These bylaws must follow or be consistent with statutes of higher and sovereign
levels of government. As stated in the first line of the CSPB, the bylaw invokes for its
definitions Schedules I, II, III, IV, V and VI of the federal Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act and acknowledges the act’s occasional amendment (Delta Controlled
Substance Property Bylaw No. 6200, 2004, Part 1—Introductory Provisions, Definitions,
2). Likewise, the Delta Zoning Bylaw is pursuant to Sections 903, 904, 906, 909 and
917 of British Columbia’s Local Government Act (Delta Zoning Bylaw No. 2750, 1977,
Part I-Title). Delta’s bylaws on narcotic substances (as well as many other unrelated
subjects) exist as a part of a larger ecosystem of laws, statutes and judicial rulings. As
such, municipal bylaws must interact and work within frameworks imposed by these
higher levels of law and are subject to requirements and limitations under them.

Perhaps the best statement of how much force a municipal government has in
addressing wider societal issues (or phenomena that are seen as issue by some) was
made by Delta’s Mayor Lois Jackson regarding how best to obtain the benefits of drug
raids from the federal government: “We tend to forget at the local level that we don’t
have any status” (Adlem, 2003). The structure of the political system and the order of
precedence for federal and provincial levels of government and their agencies means
that some concerns of local/municipal-level governments and agencies are either
under-addressed or ignored.
As an example, the Delta and the Delta Police Department, until the enactment
of bylaws such as the CSPB, were not able to receive benefits or cost-recovery from the
proceeds of crime despite the majority of efforts in support of federal drug law
enforcement being carried out by municipal agencies (Adlem, Regular Meeting, 2003).
This problem of governmental subordination is relevant to problems noted in
scholarship in the ability of municipalities to address social issues. Not unlike the
inability to collect on the proceeds of crime, municipalities in general are limited in their
ability to address societal problems and have only the ability to govern through zoning
and land-use (Ranasinghe and Valverde, 2006, 327), which precisely describe the
bylaws being studied in this paper.
In 2014, major amendments were proposed and enacted for Delta Zoning Bylaw
No. 2750, 1977 that would legally prohibit medical marijuana facilities to operate within
the jurisdiction of the city. Two amendments, 7313 and 7314, were proposed but only
one was ultimately adopted. Bylaw No. 7313 amends the Delta Zoning Bylaw by
prohibiting medical marijuana production facilities. This would forbid the use of land,
buildings or structures for the growing, cultivations, drying, testing, packaging, storage,
distribution and/or the sale of marijuana) in zones outside of the Agricultural Land
Reserve (ALR) (Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014, 2-3).
Bylaw No. 7314 would have made likewise prohibitions on the medical marijuana
production on lands within the Agricultural Land Reserve—the reason they drafted a
separate bylaw for the ALR is because Delta is subject to a Provincial Order-in-Council.
This Order-in-Council requires the city to get the approval of the Provincial Minister of
Agriculture to pass any bylaw that would affect businesses operating in the ALR
(Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2014, 3). However, BC Minister of Agriculture
Norm Letnick rejected Bylaw No. 7314 effectively allowing medical marijuana facilities to
exist on the ALR—at least in theory. Neither the Minister nor Provincial government
provided any guidelines or criteria for local governments (like Delta) to regulate the
permitted medical marijuana facilities on the ALR (Corporation of Delta, Council Report,
2014, 2).
In the end, the amendment (referred to as 7313) to the Delta Zoning Bylaw
banning medical marijuana facilities on city land outside of the Agricultural Land
Reserve which amended was passed unanimously by Delta Council (Delta Municipal
Council, Minutes, 2014, 8-9), effectively contributing to a prohibitionist regime on a local
level. But, because of the legal ecosystem and superstructure that municipalities are a
part of, the impact of this prohibitionist regime has been limited. This loophole, so to
speak, left open by the provincial government allows the possibility for medicinal

cannabis to be grown and farmed industrially in the Agricultural Land Reserve (provided
that all the necessary regulatory procedures have been applied and followed).
The fact that amendments to existing bylaws are themselves titled “bylaws”
complicates research on this subject. Certainly, improved legal style formats ought to be
adopted by cities (and perhaps other levels of government) to more specifically
segregate/identify which pieces of regulation are amendments to statutes and which
pieces are the true statutes in force. This would certainly contribute to ease of
understanding of bylaws for the ordinary citizen and potentially reduce instances of
offending by them as well as financial burdens normally created by fines (which could
be argued as contributing to class oppression).
The recent Federal Court case of Allard v. Canada ruled that the Marihuana for
Medical Purposes Regulations were unconstitutional since they infringed on the
defendants’ Section 7 Charter rights (which are those involving the right to life, liberty
and security of the person) and was not justifiable under Section 1 of the Charter (which
would have allowed exception only if it passed the test of being demonstrably justifiable
in a free and democratic society; it did not pass). The MMPR was struck down for a
period of six months by the courts to allow for the federal government to create a more
compatible medical marijuana regime (Allard v. Canada). The ruling effectively supports
the right of medical marijuana patients to grow their own cannabis plants in their own
homes (Browne, 2016).
The separation of responsibilities of bylaws pertaining to marijuana grow
operations (covered by the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw) and other bylaws
governing licensed narcotics facilities (such as the Delta Business Licence Bylaw No.
4019, 1986 and, specifically, the Delta Zoning Bylaw No. 2750, 1977 Amendment
(Prohibition of Medical Marihuana Facilities – P13-10) Bylaw No. 7313. 2014 which
govern or rather prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries and production outside the
Agricultural Land Reserve) may be on a collision course.
The forthcoming legalization of recreational cannabis (and the specific rules on
private home growing) aside, the impact of the Allard v. Canada decision may have two
ramifications for Delta’s bylaws. The first is that the separation of responsibilities for
these two local ordinances may not continue as it currently stands. The CSPB is
oriented towards enforcement, prevention and reimbursing the expenses involved in
dealing with marijuana growing operations that are illegal (with respect to federal
narcotics control legislation) with no mention of or making irrelevant whether or not the
grow-op is intended for medicinal purposes or recreational use. However, the fact that
they overlap may not necessarily cause them to conflict. The second and most
important ramification is that these two bylaws may become legally challengeable as
their enforcement (particularly the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw) could be in
violation of the Section 7 Charter rights of medical patients’ which translates to their
right to grow their own supply of medicinal cannabis. Hardship arguments for patients
residing in Delta could also be made in such a case given that the ability to acquire their
medicinal cannabis is hampered by the city’s Zoning Bylaw—which blocks the
establishment of dispensaries within the municipality.

The effect it will have upon landlords in their ability to challenge the fines
imposed by these bylaws (for legally-permissible activities conducted by their tenants) is
not as clearly predictable. However, the right of medicinal cannabis patients to grow
their own supply—whom are not required to inform their landlords—has already become
a source of conflict between patient-tenants and landlords. However, it has been
speculated that landlords may have more flexibility in enforcing prohibitionist rules with
regards to recreational cannabis. Tenancy agreements would be modified to restrict
non-medicinal cannabis in a manner similar to those clauses restricting pets in rental
spaces (Woo, 2017).
With regards to the potential ramifications of federal changes to the legal
landscape around marijuana and its effects on prohibition-oriented bylaws, Delta’s
bylaws are challengeable in the courts on their consistency. As mentioned earlier,
halfway through its first term in office the Trudeau government put into motion cannabis
legalization that was initially come into effect by the 1st of July 2018 (later changed to
October 17th). However, not unlike what we see with alcohol, the provinces will decide
how marijuana will be distributed, sold, the price and the minimum age of purchase.
Ottawa’s minimum age will be 18 years but the provinces will have the discretion to set
a higher age if they wish (which may lead to inconsistencies not unlike various drinking
ages across the country). Furthermore, Canadians will be limited to four plants per
household (Cochrane, 2017).
It may become more legally difficult to fully utilize and enforce the Controlled
Substance Property Bylaw to impose fines for the closure of marijuana grow-operations
if the substance itself is no longer listed in the same way on the federal Controlled
Drugs and Substances Act that the CSPB obtains its definitions from. Municipal
regulations could come into conflict with federal ones. To continue to prohibit the legal
private possession of cannabis plants might require further changes or amendments to
bylaws which may or may not be challengeable in court (constitutional questions would
apply here) and possibly difficult to enforce (there could be issues with regards to civil
liberties). What this all might entail is not fully certain.
Justification and raison d’être
Before addressing the informal justifications behind these bylaws, it is important
to highlight what the bylaws themselves say are the justifications, if any, behind what
they activities they enforce or prohibit. As mentioned earlier in the findings section the
bylaw receives its authority from the Community Charter and makes the official, overall
justification for its existence on the basis of that “property used for the manufacture,
trade, use, sharing, sale or barter of controlled substances causes disturbance and
inconvenience to the residents of neighbouring properties, creates risks to the health
and safety of residents, and reduces the value of neighbouring properties” (Delta
Controlled Substance Property Bylaw No. 6200, 2004, p. 1).
There is usually a stated reasoning process or justification behind the existence
of a law, bylaw, ordinance or other statute. However, it would not be sufficient to look
exclusively at what is stated in the bylaw itself, it is also important to look at statements
from outside of the bylaw. As such, informal justifications (that is, statements made
outside of the text of the bylaw itself) were gathered regarding the bylaw. It is here that

one can articulate potential cultural or ideological influences or perspectives in the
process of creating this bylaw.
Prohibitionist/War on Drugs-style rhetoric (such as an emphasis on fear) was
present in discussions of anti-marijuana bylaws but not to such an extent as one may
believe. Justifications for the bylaws from informal channels were largely of a financial
character. The objective of cost recovery and increasing municipal benefits of the
proceeds of crime was a consistently dominant justification for the Controlled Substance
Property Bylaw. Public safety arguments from the bylaw itself did not reflect reasoning
processes outside of it. Indeed, former Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford was quoted as
saying that, in the process of conducting drug enforcement operations “there are costs”
and did not discount the importance of generating revenue to alleviate these costs
(Delta Optimist, February 11, 2004, p. 3).
This does not mean that the CSPB is not oriented towards a Prohibitionist
agenda. It mere reflects a role in the War on Drugs more so in its existence rather than
in its creation. War on Drugs-style rhetoric was more of a factor with regards to issues
of zoning regulations. There is a particular irony because of how proposed permits
regarding the Delta Zoning Bylaw have more to do with activity that has been legalized
rather than such rhetoric being directed in support of bylaws such as the CSPB.
Prohibitionist rhetoric came into play in debates that were unexpected but, overall,
reasonable—cannabis, even in a legally authorized, medicinal form is a stigmatized
subject.
The Controlled Substance Property Bylaw can be considered to be a localized
tool acting in concert with the greater War on Drugs in two major ways. This first is that
it acts as a prevention/deterrence measure that seeks to thwart unsanctioned narcotics
manufacturing from becoming established on properties known to be attractive sites for
controlled drug production. This also includes providing information to landlords to
assist them in becoming compliant with the city’s bylaws. Examination of this
perspective also evokes the problematic, class-based aspects characteristic of the War
on Drugs.
Overall, the areas of economy that involve the enforcement of the Controlled
Substance Property Bylaw are strictly aimed at illegal, residence-based marijuana
production activities. Delta’s January 12, 2004 report makes references to studies
highlighting that a majority of marijuana growing operations are located on rental
properties (Corporation of Delta, 2004, 3). The problem with this specific focus is that it
possibly ignores grow-ops that take place in non-rental properties such as larger, highincome homes (the owners whom potentially can afford to mask their activities more
effectively and would be under less suspicion). Most notably, commercial or industrial
properties such as privately-owned warehouses and farms which are more affordable to
a wealthier class of citizen. The impact of this focus would be temporary as narcotics
producers would simply adapt their methods of establishing and operating growing
operations.
Likewise, the landlord guidelines and advice (the financial costs of bylaw
penalties would be the burden of the landlords) that were included as attachments to
the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw could be seen as affecting only certain

classes of landlord and tenant. The advice to landlords encourages them to be
suspicious of tenants identifies certain characteristics associated with marijuana
growing operations. Some signs involve material evidence such as certain “skunk”
smells, the sounds of motors or machinery, discarded gardening debris among others.
Other warning signs involve tenant behaviours such as having few furniture and visitors
at unusual hours (Delta Controlled Substance Property Bylaw No. 6200, 2004,
Attachment B).
As reasonable as some of these warning signs are, they could easily be
indicators of innocent, legal activities such as gardening or using motorized appliances
such as laundry machines. Smells could very well be attributable to the presence of
pest animals such as skunks and the presence of debris on a property could certainly
be attributable to having an untidy tenant (which is inconsiderate but not necessarily
unlawful). Additionally, tenants may not necessarily have much furniture because they
be economically disadvantaged and have few possessions. Furthermore, having a
home that does not appear “lived in” or having occasional “visitors” at “unusual hours”
may be indicative that tenants may have employment that keeps them away from home
and have them work and transit home at a time of day that the landlord, in contrast,
does not need to. Indeed, these “visitors” that the guidelines describe may very well be
the tenants themselves returning from work.
Furthermore, the financial penalties of the CSPB do not account for differences in
class with respect to landlords and occupants themselves. The bylaw states that fines
liable do not exceed $5000 per day of continued offense (Delta Controlled Substance
Property Bylaw No. 6200, 2004, 6). This flat-rate amount does not account for the fact
that some landowners may be more able to pay the cost than others and a limit of
$5000 may not be a deterrent for some. It would be more prudent for a bylaw to include
provisions for fines to be adjusted according to the income-level of the offender similar
to the idea of progressive taxation. This concept of “progressive punishment” is not
unprecedented, various jurisdictions in Continental and Nordic Europe utilize income
information when issuing financial penalties. Finland, for example, uses this method
when issuing speeding tickets to motorists (Arnett, 2015).
This type of bylaw also provides for direct financial support for government
operations that are participating in War on Drugs efforts. The difference here is that it
financially supports or reinforces—that is, to strengthen or replenish—local or municipal
agencies that conduct activities consistent with national or transnational narcotics
prohibition. As mentioned previously, the Controlled Substances Property Bylaw is
intended to recover financial costs associated with counter-narcotics operations and
distributing the benefits to municipal police and other city agencies engaged in drug
control enforcement. What bylaws such as these effectively do is provide financial
incentives to the continuance of the War on Drugs and, indeed, extend the War and
provide tools for the fighting on the local/municipal level.
There can be little doubt as to the presence of an ideological justification,
specifically on that is prohibitionist/War on Drugs-oriented, with regards to the local level
regulation of marijuana activities. Indeed, there is a veiled difference in justification of
these ordinances officially versus what is said unofficially. It is not exactly certain how

this bylaw regime will change with regards to coming legalization but it is possible to
make some predictions on how it might proceed in the rapidly-changing future.
As mentioned earlier, there is the possibility of conflicts between laws as
municipal regulations involving cannabis. Citizens, defendants and other potential
litigants could bring legal challenges to Delta and various other local or municipal
governments with bylaws or regulations that prohibit land-use activities that relate to
recreational or medicinal cannabis. Whether or not these cases are successful in the
courts remains to be seen. Additionally, the introduction of legalized recreational
cannabis may cause further overlaps in bylaw jurisdictions and perhaps further
amendments to accommodate definitions that would include cannabis use
recreationally.
This assumes, of course, that opposition to prohibitionist policies do not arise in
local electoral politics. Intra-municipal movements that challenge remnant prohibitionist
regimes are neither unheard of nor are they non-contemporary. Two referendums on
remaining local prohibitionist policies (both in place for more than 100 years) on alcohol
were held in two dry towns Saskatchewan and Alberta in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
The residents of the originally Mennonite town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan voted in
favour of permitting liquor to be sold at the Co-op grocery store (Canadian Press, 2013).
A year later, residents of the predominantly Mormon town of Cardston, Alberta rejected
permitting alcohol sales in their town (Graveland, 2014). The overwhelming popularity
and support that legalized cannabis has in British Columbia (75 percent according just
to a Nanos poll conducted in 2016; the highest level of support in Canada) (Leblanc,
2016) makes it likely that attempts to continue prohibitionist policies at the local level of
government may face resistance from many residents and potentially affect local
political campaigns in the future.
Another likely outcome of this changing legal landscape is the increasing trend of
major pharmaceutical retail chains getting involved in the sale, distribution and
production of cannabis. Even with regards to just medicinal cannabis, the
pharmaceutical chain Shoppers Drug Mart—which is Canada’s largest chain of retail
pharmacies and has a large outlet in South Delta—in late 2016 formally applied to
Health Canada to become a licensed distributor and dispenser of medicinal cannabis.
Reminiscent of the definitions found in the Delta Zoning Bylaw, the Health Canada
license is called a “producer license”. Despite this name, Shoppers Drug Mart’s
spokesperson clarified that they had no intention of actually producing (growing,
creating, etc.) medicinal cannabis itself (Evans, 2016). It is not unforeseeable that other
pharmacy chains will capitalize on this potential market for medicinal cannabis. What
remains to be seen is whether or not pharmacies will opt for the ability to sell
recreational cannabis as well. Likewise, it is not certain how or if municipalities like
Delta, Surrey, Vancouver, New Westminster or others will respond or challenge
established pharmaceutical corporations in the same way that they have challenged
smaller-scale marijuana dispensaries.
A final possibility that is, rather, obvious is that although the legal landscape
relevant to cannabis is changing, the legal landscape around other controlled or
outlawed substances has not. It would still be possible for enforcement of the Controlled

Substances Property Bylaw to be carried out in relation to illegal production of other
narcotic substances. Indeed, methamphetamine labs were also mentioned at the time of
the original creation of the CSPB (Delta Optimist, February 11, 2004, p. 3) and it is not
unlikely that clandestine laboratories or storage centres for other substances
(particularly opioids) could still be affected by this type of bylaw. Furthermore, the term
“grow-op” is still applicable to other plants and flora grown for illegal drug markets:
opium poppy growing operations were dismantled by RCMP in British Columbia’s
Fraser Valley (TheStar.com, 2010).
There are certainly differences between the officially stated justifications in
bylaws such as the CSPB versus what is publicly stated by municipal officials. The
bylaw as more of an expense-recovery tool (rather than a public safety one) does not
discount its overall usefulness as a localized tool in the War on Drugs. However, the
CSPB is seriously flawed in that its enforcement criteria of potential offenders and
punishment schemes ignores factors of class (focusing exclusively on lower-value
properties and non-reflexive fines) and stigmatizes activities that may not necessarily
indicate illegal activity. The bylaw is also a potentially vulnerable tool in that it may
operate in conflict with overall changes in the legal landscape on drugs. Certainly the
justifications behind a bylaw like the CSPB cannot be fully explained or evaluated
simply by looking only at the bylaw’s text.
Favourable to Agribusiness
It can hardly be refuted that a system has emerged as a result of the bylaws that
Delta has enacted that is economically-biased in favour of certain sectors. The way the
legal ecosystem operates and has operated in Delta appears to be preferential to the
interests of large cannabis-centred agribusiness and industrial farming—by means of
prohibiting land-use suitable for their competition (that is, small scale retail and
production outside of industrial/agricultural lands and residences).
For instance, in 2016, municipal staff recommended amendments to the
Business Licence Bylaw that would require business licensing for marijuana
dispensaries even if they “claim to operate” (clearly prejudicial language) on a charitable
basis must have a business licence to operate. Likewise, the language used in these
amendment definitions exclude marijuana dispensaries from definitions including: drug
stores, pharmacies, polyclinics and, most notably, methadone dispensaries (among
others). Furthermore, there are increasing financial penalties that can be applied with
bylaw infraction tickets and further powers to deny or revoke licenses to applicants
(Corporation of Delta, Council Report, 2016, 2-4).
This explicit distinction between merits of medicinal cannabis and medicinal
methadone dismisses the stringent government regulations already in place, the
growing scientific evidence of its pharmacological properties and the learned-judgement
and legitimacy of the doctors whom prescribe the drug. Additionally, the tendency to
respond by means of increasing penalties is reflective of a rather traditionalist thoughtprocess of punishment.
Despite the upcoming changes in marijuana legality, the Trudeau government
has nevertheless launched nationwide police raids against marijuana dispensaries and

have arrested long-time activists Marc and Jodie Emery (Cochrane, 2017). Jodie Emery
(just over a week before Trudeau’s legalization plans were announced) made the claim
that the Liberals were planning for a monopolized marijuana market that excluded
smaller dispensaries in favour of larger producers (possibly agribusiness) (Nuttall,
2017). It is not unthinkable that regulatory changes on the federal level might legitimize
or encourage municipal bylaws that reproduce conditions favorable to large
agribusiness or work in favor of large firms already established thanks to previous
bylaws. However, there is the possibility that challenges to these bylaws may be
pursued by these corporations seeking to capitalize on the newly-legalized recreational
market (so far, only medicinal cannabis is open to production on Delta’s Agricultural
Land Reserve). As mentioned earlier, major pharmaceutical chains are already making
preparations for making medicinal cannabis available for purchase in their stores.
Nevertheless, the municipal regulatory environment that exists as of the writing of
this paper is more permissive to large industrial concerns. With the use of specific
definitions in the bylaws, the prohibition of cannabis production—which also includes
the retail sale and distribution of cannabis—on lands outside of the ALR create a
political-economic environment amenable to large agribusiness. Relevant to this are
Mayor Lois Jackson’s concerns about industrial-scale cannabis production on
agricultural land as potentially displacing food production (Browne, 2016). These are
crucial and legitimate concerns given the trend of a decreasing amount of agricultural
land in the rapidly urbanized development of British Columbia.
Only those companies that can afford the stringent regulations and financial
costs of establishing operations in the permitted industrial zones can operate (effectively
denying access to this market from smaller start-ups, non-profits, co-operative ventures
or other pétit bourgeois business). This can produce the foundations for private-sector
monopolies not unlike what can be seen with traditional pharmaceuticals or some of the
larger liquor businesses. What these sorts of amendments and amendment proposals
amount to is a preference towards commercial ventures (that is, corporate and profitdriven) in growing medical marijuana.
The activities that are part of the legal ecosystem in Delta make an imperfect
contribution to Canada’s national marijuana regulation landscape in how it provides
financial support for enforcement operations. The city’s bylaws work in coordination with
each other as well as with legislation from superior levels of government. However,
parts of the structure of this ecosystem inhibits its ability to support a prohibitionist
system in full. At times, regulations and decisions by higher levels of government
actually work against Delta’s efforts. The bylaws and their methods of enforcement are
also partially flawed in their ability to fully enforce prohibition—in particular, they neglect
certain socio-economic qualities that would have been prudent to consider in the
bylaw’s drafting. Furthermore, these prohibitionist bylaws have a further (arguably
contradictory) effect on Delta’s economic environment as they appear to be favourable
to large industrial agribusiness of medicinal cannabis production whilst, at the same
time, creating an environment hostile to smaller commercial-retail enterprises that
provide cannabis to their users. This legal ecosystem is also subject to serious
complications given the changing legal landscape of marijuana on the federal level. Not

unlike the threat to Delta due to coming changes in sea levels, the legal ecosystem in
Delta is threatened by coming changes in the federal legal landscape on marijuana.
The legal ecosystem in Delta indeed serves a role in support of the overall War
on Drugs and the prohibition of marijuana but one that is limited and containing various
contradictions. Without the appropriate adaptation, the Delta’s bylaws regulating
marijuana may be unable to function properly in this role. Likewise, without the
appropriate adaptation or even repeal, Delta’s bylaws risk being inconsistent with
Canada’s legal landscape on marijuana and totally out of touch with the standards of its
citizens.
Conclusion
This study was meant to be a critical exploration of the current reality of
municipalities and their regulation and suppression of narcotics. This is especially
important in the context of cannabis legalization on the provincial and national-levels of
government and how both existing and prior municipal bylaws (that limit cannabis’
availability) continue to impact the effectiveness of legalization—creating situations for
many people where cannabis is still de facto illegal and may not necessarily discourage
illegal market sources.
The study included examining the development, application and overall
objectives of municipal bylaws, specifically those involved in the regulation of controlled,
narcotic substances such as cannabis/marijuana (both medicinal and non-medicinal).
Delta, my hometown and site of multiple cannabis-related bylaw activities, was selected
as the municipality for this study and attention was given to any latent or implicit
ideological justifications for the need and use of two particular bylaws (one addressing
land-use for illegal purposes and another addressing land-use for, otherwise legal,
commercial purposes). There was also a focus on any economic or class-based effects
that these bylaws would have when enforced.
In hindsight, it might have been a better choice to focus solely on developments
relevant to the Delta Zoning Bylaw. The reason for this is because of how more relevant
and contemporary the subject of medicinal cannabis (and, in future, non-medicinal) is in
the public’s zeitgeist. Discussion of marijuana “grow-ops” might be considered by the
public as a subject that is now passé. Moreover, there is more available data to be
collected on the subject and debates over the Delta Zoning Bylaw regarding medicinal
cannabis. Documents on this subject (aside from being contemporary) also contain
more examples of public input—specifically attached emails from constituents and
others. The increase in the use of electronic communications and of online news media
could be a factor in the differing amount of data available between the early-2000s
(when “grow-ops” were a more common topic of discussion) versus the early-2010s
(when one is more likely to hear about “dispensaries” and “medicinal marijuana”). But
more research is needed to settle this conclusively. Despite this, my research does
cover both of these two bylaws and the areas of responsibility that they are involved in.
The findings demonstrated some aspects of a War on Drugs- or prohibitionistoriented ideology, but it seems that the motivations for the enactment and enforcement
of these bylaws were largely financial (as a means to recover budgetary expenditures

for drug enforcement operations). Nevertheless, the very fact that a bylaw recovers
costs of enforcement categorizes it as providing financial support for the
prohibitionist/War on Drugs system that has led to numerous oppressive and
problematic outcomes for both Canadian and international society. These were not the
only findings. Themes that could be classified as being “cultural” were discovered in the
process. Such themes included how seriously officials appeared to treat the matter of
drug grow-ops/property seizures, relations/tensions between regions and governments
and the reaction that officials and members of the public had to controversial rezoning
application (they would have produced commercial cannabis). It might be worthwhile for
future research to explore these themes for subject matter other than marijuana growing
operations.
I also discussed how municipal bylaws form a part of a legal ecosystem based
upon the interactions between other bylaws and the statutes and/or rulings of higher
levels of government. The overall role that prohibitionist ideals played in the existence of
relevant bylaws were discussed as well as some (class-based) criticisms in their
inherent structure. Indeed, the legal ecosystem occasionally works against efforts in
support of a War on Drugs ideology. The legal ecosystem at the same time plays a role
in class conflict in that bylaws are developed and enforced in a manner that almost
exclusively targets and punishes residents and owners of lower-income rental housing
(its criteria does not affect higher-income residences or commercial properties whose
owners are more likely to afford means of averting suspicion). Likewise, the punishment
framework of municipal bylaws does not account for the income of owners. The fine is
not adjusted to the income-level of the offender. Thus more affluent offenders may not
be deterred by the bylaw. Critical economic considerations were discussed in how these
bylaws created an environment that is favorable to the interests of large, industrial
agribusiness and against smaller, retail enterprises. Furthermore, predictions were
made as to the future of these bylaws given the changing legal landscape that these
mostly prohibitionist bylaws must be able to adapt to.
It will take time to be certain of the future or extinction of marijuana prohibition, its
current form is by no means static. This research demonstrates that municipal bylaws
as a form of power (and drug regulation) are imperfect. They are in their nature
complicated mechanisms that can be hampered or impaired in their effectiveness as
often as they can effect progressive change (progressive change which at times may
not necessarily be intended). Furthermore, bylaws can have consequences (intended or
otherwise) that create imbalances of power that stifle fair economic competition as well
as create additional oppressive conditions for socio-economically marginalized classes
of people. Future research in drug-related municipal bylaws in a suburban setting will
need to take into account the complex nature of bylaws as well as how adequately a
municipality maintains and organizes its records. It might be the case that useful data
may not exist, is incomplete, lost or inaccessible for a variety of reasons—the less
significant the municipality or town is, the more these problems are likely to occur. In
addition, it may be necessary to look beyond the scale and hierarchy of governments
(such as examining bylaws from a cultural, social ecology or other perspectives).
It is clear that municipal bylaws will continue to play a role in the regulation of
marijuana. However, the degree to which it will be able to impose some sort of moral or

social control is likely to become impaired if not increasingly opposed as society’s
attitudes on the drug continue to change. In the meantime, cities and towns might be
well-advised to investigate potential municipalisation (socialized/public ownership; a
“localized” Crown corporation or utility, if you will) of a legalised cannabis industry. In
this way, citizens might more directly benefit from public ownership than would
necessarily be possible if assets were simply controlled federally or provincially (the
nation-state). This is not necessarily a call for the radical visions of municipal control
such as those of the late Murray Bookchin, but there are certainly a variety of ideas
available to municipalities to approach such a potentially profitable resource such as
cannabis.

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