To get into the Vancouver School of Drug War History and Organic Cultivation, would-be cannabis buyers had to first answer a skill-testing question that showed they had taken part in a one-hour walking tour.
“The cops... tried getting access to the school just by tapping on the window like everyone else did, and they were asked for a drug war history walking tour fact,” said David Malmo-Levine, once referred to as a “prince of pot” in a Vancouver Sun article. Malmo-Levine worked at the school in the early 2000s.
“They couldn't come up with one and we were like, ‘Oh, gotta go back and go on the tour. It happens every day at 3 o’clock.’”

For decades, the two-storey building at 123 E. Hastings was just one of the many retail stores lining a busy part of Vancouver’s downtown.
But as the Downtown Eastside lost its attraction as a shopping destination and became instead the city’s poorest neighbourhood, this small building, located right next to Canada’s first safe injection site, took on a different significance — home to protest and illicit commerce as activists fought against drug prohibition.
The pot shop was shuttered in 2008 after a police raid, and the building has sat empty ever since. But unlike the 110-year-old Balmoral Hotel just two doors down, which was torn down by the city in 2022 after decades of neglect, 123 E. Hastings is still standing. And it may live to see another chapter added to its story.
A unique art nouveau style
At first glance, 123 E. Hastings, built in 1903, seems small and humble. But because of the building’s unusual art nouveau style, it’s actually unique in Western Canada, says Donald Luxton, a cultural heritage adviser based in Vancouver.
“We see it in Europe — Madrid and Lisbon and many places in northern Europe,” Luxton said of the sinuous decorative style inspired by the natural world that became popular in the 1890s. “But we don’t have it in Canada, and certainly not in Western Canada.”
The building went up just a few years before an economic upswing in West Coast cities led to a building boom. The economic exuberance rippled out of the United States’ decision to take over construction of the stalled Panama Canal, a project that would make shipping and travel from the east coast of the Americas to the west coast much easier.
In Vancouver, the building boom led to the construction of large, imposing hotels like the Dunsmuir Hotel in 1907 and the Balmoral in 1912.
123 E. Hastings is more typical of the smaller buildings that were constructed before the boom, Luxton said. He added that he hasn’t been able to unearth any information about why the building’s developer, John Lewerke, chose the unusual art nouveau style.
Newspaper ads show the space, located in a bustling downtown neighbourhood, was rented to a jeweller, a shoe store, a Goodwill, a ceramic figure shop and a travel agency from the 1940s to 1970s. In 1975, a kung fu demonstration was advertised; in 1978, the entire building was listed for sale for $115,000.
‘Really good pot at reasonable prices’
By the 1990s, the Downtown Eastside had primarily become home to people who couldn’t afford to live anywhere else but its rundown single-room occupancy hotels.
With suburban development and the growing popularity of shopping malls, the neighbourhood was no longer a downtown shopping destination for city residents. It had also become known for its open drug use and dealing, and in the ’80s and ’90s residents were hit hard by multiple health crises: HIV, drug addiction and deadly overdoses.
By the late ’90s, the neighbourhood was also the epicentre of a generation of activists who were pushing to change drug policy in Canada. Drug users and their supporters organized politically, set up unsanctioned safe injection sites and pushed for the adoption of harm reduction programs such as needle exchanges. They wanted drug use to be treated not as a law enforcement problem, but as a health issue.
In 2003, Canada’s first legal safe injection site, Insite, was opened in the building right beside 123 E. Hastings.
Around the same time, 123 E. Hastings became a site of drug policy activism when Malmo-Levine rented the space and opened his museum.
The Vancouver School of Drug War History and Organic Cultivation was one of a handful of businesses dotting Hastings in the late ’90s and early 2000s where pot could be bought and smoked.
At the time, Canadian drug laws banned the possession and sale of cannabis; these businesses made a point of violating those laws to put Vancouver at the forefront of challenging the illegality of marijuana.
The New Amsterdam Café, which first opened in 1998, continues to operate today at 301 W. Hastings. The Blunt Café was also located on Hastings Street, while the Da Kine Café did business on Commercial Drive. The scene also included the Cannabis Café and the Crosstown Café.

In the early 2000s, these cafés were frequently in the news as residents grappled with the idea of freely selling and using pot. Police sometimes raided the businesses in dramatic takedowns that resulted in some of the owners being charged with drug trafficking.
David Malmo-Levine was involved in running the so-called Herb School at 123 E. Hastings for four years.
“There was a museum in the front and they could walk by old cannabis medicine bottles and old heroin and cocaine medicine bottles and learn facts,” Malmo-Levine said.
“And then in the back, they could buy really good pot at reasonable prices. And we had mushrooms there too. And, once in a while for opiate-addicted people, we had nice wholesome opium instead — better than the heroin that people were using.”
This is how Vancouver Courier editor Michael Kissinger described the “Herb School” in a 2007 article:
“There are no detentions or curriculum, and, as the school's friendly headmaster, Malmo-Levine is hardly a disciplinarian. Part drop-in centre, part museum, part historical preservation society, the school also houses Malmo-Levine’s vast collection of drug-related memorabilia, posters, news clippings and artifacts, including a package of cocaine throat lozenges, a picture of what's believed to be Shakespeare's resin-filled pipe collection and a massive medicine bottle from the 1800s that once contained cannabis and morphine.”
The venture ended when police raided the museum and pot shop in February 2008.
Malmo-Levine and five others were arrested. Malmo-Levine pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and served four months in jail.
After he was released, he eventually opened another marijuana dispensary in Vancouver.

In 2016, marijuana was legalized in Canada, fulfilling a key campaign promise made by the federal Liberal party.
Guy Felicella also has strong memories of 123 E. Hastings, but not because of the Herb School. Felicella is now an advocate for drug policy reform and addiction recovery, and works as a peer clinical adviser with the BC Centre on Substance Use. But in the late ’90s and 2000s, he was addicted to heroin and living in the Downtown Eastside, at times on the street.
He remembers frequently buying drugs from a dealer who operated out of the upstairs of 123 E. Hastings and sold heroin, crack and cocaine.
“It was a major hub for a lot of drug transactions for the Downtown Eastside,” Felicella said. Buyers would have to call ahead, then show up at a barbed wire fence at the back of the property.
“Somebody would come to the gate and take the money and go upstairs to see [the dealer] and come back down with the substances.”
At some point, the dealer was arrested and the operation was shut down, Felicella said.
Keeping the facade
After the police raid in 2008, no functioning businesses seem to have taken up residence at 123 E. Hastings. Google Street View photos show that the upstairs was boarded up in 2009, while the first-floor storefront was boarded up in 2015.
The property is now owned by Concord Pacific, one of Vancouver’s biggest developers, Luxton says.
And that means its future is up in the air.
In 2023, the City of Vancouver proposed tearing down the building and using the lot, along with the vacant lot next door, to host the Downtown Eastside street market, which has hopped from location to location for years as the various vacant lots that have hosted it have been redeveloped into badly needed social housing.
Many residents rely on the open-air market for income and to shop in their neighbourhood, where many traditional retailers have disappeared over the years. But the market is controversial, with persistent concerns about stolen items showing up for sale.
Luxton told The Tyee he was taken aback by the city’s sudden decision to demolish a heritage-listed building; in March 2023, the city withdrew its plan to demolish 123 E. Hastings.
But the vacant building is in very poor shape. According to reporting in the Vancouver Sun, an engineering report commissioned by Concord Pacific found that the two-storey structure is now in danger of the floors or entire building collapsing in the event of an earthquake.
Luxton said if the building is saved in the future, it’s likely that only the facade will be able to be retained.
123 E. Hastings wouldn’t be the first heritage building to meet that fate after years of neglect.
In 2017, the city took the unprecedented step of expropriating the Balmoral Hotel at 159 E. Hastings. In 2023, the 115-year-old building was demolished after sitting vacant under city ownership for four years and deteriorating further.
In December 2024, the city convened an emergency council meeting to approve the demolition of Dunsmuir House, a once grand hotel built in 1907 at the corner of Dunsmuir and Richards streets. The building, owned by the Holborn Group, has been vacant since 2013. City inspections found that water damage had progressed to the point that floors had collapsed and the entire building was at risk.
Luxton also listed the Only, a legendary seafood café, and the Pantages Theatre as lost opportunities to save heritage buildings that once were landmarks in the Downtown Eastside.
“It's just so discouraging sometimes, because you just want these things to survive — and be a part of a vibrant downtown,” he said.
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