Busted Langley medical marijuana advocate is taking his fight to the ballot box

A Langley City council candidate and owner of a popular medical marijuana dispensary says he welcomes a drug trafficking charge levied against him earlier this week and looks forward to his day in court. Victor Eugene “Randy” Caine, 57, was arrested Tuesday after federal prosecutors approved a charge of possession of a controlled substance, in an amount exceeding three kilograms, for the purpose of trafficking. On July 19, five police officers wearing bulletproof jackets executed a search warrant on Caine’s Langley Medical Marijuana Dispensary — in a commercial building in the 20200 block of Fraser Highway — and seized more than eight pounds of pot and marijuana-based products, including cookies and candy.

Caine, who is running for Langley City council said he was “blindsided” by the July raid, but closed operations for two months and set out to the community to get a pulse on the issue. “This is on the front burner,” he said Thursday. “There were almost 2,000 signatures on our petition, which is more than what some council members received in the last civic election.” Caine questions the timing of his arrest with civic elections around the corner. On Monday, the petition in support of the pot dispensary was brought forward to Langley City council by a handful of the 150 medical marijuana users Caine calls clients.

On Tuesday, Caine was asked to meet a Langley RCMP sergeant at a local coffee shop where he was handed an arrest warrant and promise to appear on Dec. 5. “It’s regrettable but I do welcome it,” Caine said Thursday from his dispensary office — now his campaign headquarters. “It will give me an opportunity to speak to this as well as subpoena those I’ve spoken with throughout these last three years,” he said. Among those Caine wishes to subpoena are Langley’s top cop, Superintendent Derek Cooke, and Langley City council, for having “full and complete knowledge” of the dispensary a year before the July raid.

“I would suggest if I am guilty of anything, that they too would be guilty of what I’d call culpability.” Caine said he has been completely transparent with both the police and city officials in his quest to help sick people — “some who are dealing with end of life issues,” he said. The legal sticking point for Caine is the amount of people he can distribute the drug to with his Health Canada-issued medical marijuana license. He is permitted to have two clients. At the peak of his dispensary, he had 250.

Superintendent Cooke maintains the dispensary is not legally authorized, as a number of customers were not licensed by Health Canada to use the drug.
These sorts of dispensaries are illegal and, despite what some may profess, have not been supported by the courts,” Superintendent Cooke said in a release on Wednesday. Police agencies around the Lower Mainland also raided other dispensaries and compassion clubs in June and July. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the drugs being sold at the dispensary came from illegal marijuana grow operations,” said Cooke.

Caine says he regularly submitted the contracts for the unlicensed “mom and pop” growers he purchases pot from to the police, and has based his business model on a ruling in a Victoria court which allowed the Victoria Compassion Society to continue to purchase marijuana through a contract with an unlicensed grower. “I have violated my quota of caring. It truly is a quota problem,” Caine said. Caine hopes the issue captures the attention of Langley City residents and inspires them to vote. Some 80 per cent didn’t turn out for the last civic election.

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