Court Rules Psychedelic Mushroom Dispensary Can Remain Open in Vancouver

When an inspector from the City of Vancouver visited the Coca Leaf Café in February 2022, located near the downtown area of the city, he reported that more than 90 percent of the business was related to the sale of magic mushrooms. The rest of the business was likely judged for its sale of other psychedelics and coca leaves.

However, a recent court ruling found that city authorities failed to legally establish beyond any reasonable doubt that the business sold or offered to sell illegal mushroom products. The decision has buoyed campaigners and nixed the attempt to close down the psychedelics emporium.

“Our mushroom dispensaries will outlast the current mayor and council,” spokesperson Dana Larsen told DoubleBlind. “We will outlast the current chief of police. We’re not going anywhere and in the end, we are going to win.”

READ: Shroom Dispensaries Operate Out in the Open in Vancouver

The City of Vancouver contended, according to CBC, that it didn’t need to further prove that the shop was selling a controlled substance. The inspector’s report that the business was “operating an illegal mushroom dispensary where substances containing psilocybin were being sold” was sufficient evidence. British Columbia provincial court judicial justice Aamna Afsar disagreed, though she found the director of the business guilty of a bylaw offense.

The inspector did not provide evidence that he had “purchased, tried or seized any of the products and had them tested to confirm their contents,” Afsar said. “He acknowledged he could not identify whether a mushroom contained psilocybin.” Nor did he speak to customers or employees, Afsar ruled.

“It is possible that the mushrooms being sold included illicit substances like psilocybin or psilocin; it is even likely,” she said. “However, a possibility or a probability does not meet the standard of proof.”

It comes after a high-profile raid of the premises in November where police seized thousands of dollars in cash and psychedelics worth tens of thousands. Larsen was arrested, handcuffed, and detained in custody for several hours before he was released. He reopened the shop the next day after avoiding criminal charges. Two other outlets that had been raided reopened shortly after. 

There are more than a dozen illegal psychedelics dispensaries operating openly in Vancouver, where some drug use is decriminalized and where entrepreneurial cannabis activism was largely tolerated before federal legalization.

READ: Canada Now Has Psilocybin Dispensaries

“There’s an argument to say that what [the City of Vancouver is] doing is regulating criminal law, which the municipal government is obviously not entitled constitutionally to do,” lawyer Jack Lloyd, a drug law expert, told CBC.

“At the end of the day, it’s a criminal matter, and you have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt,” Kirk Tousaw, the barrister who represented the Coca Leaf Café, told the broadcaster. “The city failed to do that.”

Still, it wasn’t all good news for drug reform advocates. Director Cindy Heemeryck, director of the Strathcona Tea Society, which runs the shop, will be sentenced in November after being found guilty of unauthorized use of premises. The Coca Leaf Café had been operating under a limited-service food license. Afsar said that a “reasonable and lawful course of action is not to simply ignore the orders and continue operations because you disagree with the orders.”

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