Compassion Club

A place in Vancouver that sells marijuana cheaply to people who need it for a medical reason. Illegal, of course, but the police leave it alone because of the community service it provides. Unfortunately there are a lot of "patients" there who are suffering from horrible illnesses such as ingrown toenails, the sniffoos, and so on. (Having been a legitimate (chemotherapy) client, I've seen -- and heard -- a lot of 'em).

Not just limited to one club. Compassion club is a general term used all over North America that describes a club which tries to ease the pain of terminally ill patients through the use of marijuana. There are many compassion clubs all over the United States and Canada. The clubs usually grow their own marijuana plants and then harvest them to be sold at low prices to people who have a doctor's letter of recomendation for the use of medical marijuana.

The police often do intervene and bust the clubs regularly where medical marijuana is not legal. The most famous one is located in California, in the Bay Area. It was founded in 1996 when California voters passed an initiative to legalize medical marijuana. Recently, however, the federal government has been hassling the club under the claim that they can override the state laws regarding medical marijuana because it is still illegal under federal law.