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| Holy Smoke: Cannabis Church-Café Set to Open |
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Posted by FoM on March 30, 2002 at 08:36:10 PT By Krista Foss Source: Globe and Mail 
Part church mission, part café and meditation lounge, a new business set to open next week in Winnipeg's Osborne Village is bound to turn some heads every time the door opens and lets out a distinctive waft of marijuana smoke.The Cannabis Devout Mission Café is devoted to all things hemp -- including smoking and worshipping the most stimulating member of the mulberry family as a religious sacrament. Founder Chris Dalman said his café will be the first in Canada where cannabis is promoted for its environmental and spiritual properties and inhaled by those professing membership in the Church of the Universe. "What we plan to do is revolutionize and set a standard for cannabis cafés and missions in Canada," he said. "It's time for an establishment to exist in a healthy, positive, constructive way that facilitates the culture and is not associated with druggy, underground connotations." The Cannabis Devout Mission Café isn't being hidden away in an obscure city back alley where it will escape notice. Instead, it will operate in a modern commercial building, swathed in galvanized steel, that boasts an Urban Barn decor store, a popular eatery and a radio station among its tenants and is situated in one of Winnipeg's busiest downtown neighbourhoods. Mr. Dalman, a minister with the Church of the Universe, which currently has only 12 members in Winnipeg but is likely to grow, said he expects the café to attract attention. The Church of the Universe was founded by Walter Tucker in 1969 in Hamilton, Ont., for the purpose of worshipping cannabis, which is called the Tree of Life, practising nudism and alternative spirituality. According to the church's Web site, "members are encouraged to surround themselves with the holy Tree of Life, not just inhaling it, but wearing it, growing it, writing on it, eating it, etc. They decide for themselves ways and times to use God's Tree of Life." At the Winnipeg café, that means that some people will smoke marijuana but there will also be those who come in just to learn about it or buy environmentally friendly hemp products. "There are many people who smoke and have no belief that it is of a religious significance . . . These people will be allowed in our café but not allowed to smoke," Mr. Dalman said. As for the legal aspects of what he is doing, he said he and his supporters will take it one step at a time. The café will be forbidden to minors unless they have an adult accompanying them or written permission, Mr. Dalman said. No tobacco or alcohol will be available or sold. There will be absolutely no dealing, he said. And eventually he says the café will allow patrons who have Health Canada authorization to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes there. What will skirt the letter of the law is Mr. Dalman's intent to allow his church members to smoke the weed as a religious sacrament at the café. "Legal is a relative term . . . we are prepared to go to jail for this," he said. "We're aware the police are watching what we're doing." No one from Winnipeg Police Services was available to comment yesterday. But the precedents for this kind of enterprise are hardly promising. In January, Vancouver police raided and shut down that city's fledgling Marijuana Tea House, which was originally established for medical marijuana users, when an undercover officer bought the illegal herb there. The Church of the Universe has also had its own troubled history. The cult of nudists and cannabis lovers thrived unchallenged on 144 hectares of land and rock quarry between Hamilton and Guelph in the early 1970s. But after a severely decomposed body was found on the property in 1975 and the church was linked to members of biker gangs, two decades of police scrutiny began that resulted in countless court appearances by Mr. Tucker and Michael Baldasaro, another Church of the Universe minister who later ran for the mayoralty of Hamilton. In 1994, a Church of the Universe minister was found hogtied and murdered in his home. Mr. Dalman is undeterred. He plans to open his café quietly next week, as early as Monday, and then plan a bigger splash later in the month. Canadian Links CannabisNews Articles - Canada Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on March 30, 2002 at 14:36:25 PT |
| sorry, FoM; I don't know why I am not able to keep the text within a certain width, feel free to delete all three postings here... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Jose Melendez on March 30, 2002 at 14:35:18 PT |
| from http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n610/a03.html?397 URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n610/a03.html From: URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n609/a10.html [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on March 30, 2002 at 14:33:32 PT |
| from http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n610/a03.html?397 URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n610/a03.html From: URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n609/a10.html [ Post Comment ] |
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