An unlicensed cannabis store on the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation is probably in the clear according to a B.C. lawyer.

Pinnacle Access opened last month and sells cannabis products which are not yet legal.

Kyla Lee with Acumen Law says she doesn’t think any legal action will be taken and thinks the store will be left alone by the feds.

“The problem is that the federal government can address anything that happens on reserve lands and can come in and stop it. The question is whether or not they’re actually going to do it. Because as a public perception issue, it seems really bad to be bullying the one cannabis shop that’s operating on a reserve and not the thousands of others that are operating illegally,” Lee says.

The store also doesn’t have a license from the province. But, Lee says the feds never formally involved First Nations in cannabis legalization like they said they would, and she says as a result a lot of bands are now essentially regulating themselves.

She says the question on whether or not it’s lawful for a cannabis store on Indigenous land to operate outside of the provincial and federal regulatory spheres would have to be litigated.

“The owners of the shop, or the proprietors or the First Nation itself could raise a defense that they’re engaged in activity that is related directly to their Indigenous governance, and that the government doesn’t have a right to stop them from doing it. And it would essentially proceed in the same way that we see cases proceed with respect to hunting and fishing rights, harvesting rights, those types of things.”