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By Liam Britten

o matter what your stance on

marijuana prohibition, you have

to hand it to the pro-legalization
crowd: they certainly make Canadian
politics more interesting.

This is a movement known for
wild, party-like rallies and larger-than-
life personalities like the “Prince of
Pot,” Marc Emery. It is an unusual
movement still looking for a clear
identity, a group usually espousing
don’t-tread-on-me libertarian values
yet is politically linked to social
democrats and environmentalists. It’s
an often-contradictory movement, one
that can often seem confrontational
and abrasive to the uninitiated and one
that sometimes skirts the line between
activism and punch line.

But while Marc Emery revelled
in the spotlight of being the Prince
of Pot and the Marijuana Party tried
to work within the system to achieve
decriminalization, a different group
of activists were busying themselves
in the Downtown Eastside, generating
awareness, giving tours and selling art.
They had a grassroots approach to their
campaign for legalization and from 2004
until a police raid in 2008, the School
of Drug War History and Organic
Cultivation fought against laws they felt
were unjust by educating the public.

The School of Drug War History
and Organic Cultivation, known as
“The Herb School” to the activists
who worked there, was located on
the 100-block of East Hastings, right
next door to where Insite sits today.

The School was started as a place to
educate about the politics of the Drug
War, educate drug users about harm
reduction and safety and to fundraise
for pro-legalization events. The School
became well-known for their hour-
long Tours of Drug War History that
presented locations around Downtown
Vancouver key to Vancouver’s own
involvement with the Drug War; opium
tunnels under Chinatown, the Marijuana
Party bookstore and the site of 1971’s
Gastown Riots. The by-donations

tours were well attended and showed
guests from Canada and around the
world a side of Vancouver that most
Vancouverites might not even know
about.

Owen Taylor, 22, was a regular
fixture at the School during its four-year
existence. To this day, he is still proud of
the education and harm reduction work
done there.

“It was really a great little
community,” Taylor told The Other
Press. “Everyone was really open with
each other, and not one time did we have
a violent incident where we needed to
call the police.”

But the police came anyway. In
the summer and fall of 2007, the police
who used to walk by with “a nod
and a smile” changed their attitude.
Taylor described their behaviour as
“intimidating” and “aggressive.” He
recalled one incident where a police
officer tried to physically force herself
into the Herb School building uninvited
and without a warrant.

“They didn’t like what we were
saying and they didn’t like what we
stood for,” Taylor said of the police.
“We would teach about the many, many,
many uses of cannabis, not just medical
but social, economic uses... They
basically just wanted to shut us up.”

Perhaps the Herb School was
something of an easy target for the
police. Unlike the upscale bong shops
like Puff’s and Cottonmouth Smoke
Shop that Taylor says “don’t stand for
shit,” the Herb School was visible. They
had an agenda. They held rallies. They
wore vests that said “More Dead Cops.”
And on February 20", 2008, it all came
to a head.

The Vancouver Police Department
executed a search warrant for the
premises, and arrested five men who
were at the School at the time: Owen
Taylor, Adam Walker, Martin Milner,
James Cunningham and David Malmo-
Levine. The police also found a small
scale, several empty baggies and $60
worth of marijuana. The five were held
by the VPD overnight and charged
with a variety of offences, including
trafficking.

One of the arrested, David Malmo-
Levine, 37, is no stranger to the heavy
hand of the law. In 2003, Malmo-
Levine went before the Supreme Court
of Canada after his “Harm Reduction
Club,” which distributed marijuana
at cost, was raided in 1996. When his
case reached the Supreme Court, he
challenged the legality of Canada’s

" narcotics laws, arguing that the

Constitution only permits the existence
of criminal laws that prevent harm,
and laws that don’t meet this “harm
principle” should be struck down.
Ultimately, the Court disagreed.

But Malmo-Levine is about to have
another chance to present his case about
the illegality of marijuana laws in court.
He plead guilty to all the charges against
the Herb School defendants (except for
a charge of morphine distribution, one
he said police “invented”), and now has
a plan to debate the Constitution with
the Supreme Court.

For Taylor, however, this means he
and the rest of his co-defendants will
avoid a potentially risky trial.

“David wanted us all to plead
not guilty and fight it,” Taylor said,
explaining that Malmo-Levine
wanted his co-defendants to join him