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Part of cannabis laws and regulations

A Winnipeg man was sentenced this week to 10 months in prison after getting caught with a folding knife, a scale, cellphones, baggies and almost three times the legal cannabis limit of 30 grams.

Three months after Rodney Clayton Felix was caught in a mall with 86 grams of cannabis, the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba handed out two $2,500 tickets to vendors caught selling thousands of illegal THC-infused edibles and more than a kilogram of dried bud at the HempFest Cannabis Expo in the same city.

And in another case, Manitoba-based cannabis producer Bonify had its sales licence suspended by Health Canada earlier this year after allegedly selling 210 kilograms of substandard marijuana purchased from the illicit market but sold through licensed retail outlets. No criminal charges have resulted from that incident.

Critics say the different punishments in these cases show Canada’s enforcement of its new cannabis laws is as arbitrary and heavy-handed as it was before legalization, which made squeezing out the illicit market a core priority.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which handles drug cases across the country, said Mr. Felix’s sentence for possessing cannabis for the purpose of distribution, handed out in Manitoba Provincial Court on Tuesday, was not the first since legalization, but could not say how many street-level dealers have been sentenced. The prosecution had been seeking a 15-month sentence for Mr. Felix.

Spokeswoman Nathalie Houle said the fact that recreational cannabis is now legalized has no bearing on the PPSC’s position that drug dealers should be sentenced to periods in jail similar to how they were under the old cannabis laws.

“The seriousness of the trafficking offences does not change in light of the decriminalization of personal amounts of marihuana,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

The authorities have the discretion to hand out a maximum $200 ticket for people caught with more than 30 grams in public or, if there is much more cannabis or other items such as baggies or “score sheets” showing customer data, the person can be charged with possessing cannabis for the purpose of distribution, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Scott Paler, a public defender for the past two decades who represented Mr. Felix, said Manitoba judges hand out significantly harsher cannabis sentences than their counterparts in British Columbia. He said he was not surprised at the jail sentence, given his client pleaded guilty and had a history of drug-related offences. (Mr. Felix was also sentenced to 60 days for a mischief charge related to his arrest at the mall.)

But he had hoped the judge would accept his argument that his client’s activity was analogous to bootlegging alcohol or selling contraband cigarettes.

“You could make the argument that those substances are probably more dangerous than cannabis and typically the result in those types of cases are financial penalties,” he said.

“The judge, in his reasons, said directly, ‘he’s a drug dealer,’ and he sentenced him in accordance with the old tariffs for the same types of offences prior to legalization.”

Mr. Felix will likely be finished his sentence in June and is not interested in appealing the judge’s decision, Mr. Paler said.

“It’s not the ideal test case, but my concern is the criminal provision will be used to penalize people who are undermining the government monopoly for selling marijuana and perhaps are more vulnerable,” he said, noting the people selling much more cannabis months later at HempFest faced no charges.

“You’re dealing with two parties, both of whom are unauthorized to sell cannabis products: one got a ticket, one got a jail sentence,” he said.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, the city says 20 retail shops are still selling cannabis illegally. Police say they have higher-priority files and will only begin investigating those illicit retailers accused of links to organized crime or selling to minors.

The province has said its liquor and cannabis inspectors won’t start cracking down on these outlets until more licensed competitors are operating.

Allan Young, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Toronto who has represented dozens of illicit medical marijuana retailers and dispensaries in that city, said only violent or incredibly large-scale cannabis traffickers should be going to jail, something he said he told B.C. Supreme Court judges at an educational conference in Vancouver last week.

“Any prosecution department that says nothing has changed is really just taking a very callous, indifferent and insensitive position and not recognizing how monumental the change is,” he said.

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