Cannabis Raid Culture
Canada is months away from legalization and regulation, yet police raids are still happening on a large scale across the country.
March 9th, 2017: Cannabis Culture stores in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver were raided under what the Toronto Police Service calls “Project Gator”. These raids followed the arrest of the Canadian cannabis activists Marc and Jodie Emery on March 8th at the Toronto International Airport as they were headed to Spannabis, a cannabis expo held in Barcelona, Spain.
It was reported that at 11am two masked police officers stormed the Cannabis Culture store on 461 Church Street in Toronto, and proceeded to tear down security cameras before arresting the on duty manager and seizing cash and inventory. Similar raids were carried out across the country soon after. Most employees and customers were free to go during the raid, but as per conventional tactics, the Toronto Police seized cellphones and told bystanders that they would have their phones taken if they took photos or videos of the raid. This did not stop the ensuing barrage of social media posts covering the arrests and seizures.
Mark Pugash, Toronto Police spokesperson, explicitly stated that the raids will continue despite incoming federal legislation to regulate dispensaries. This hard stance enforcing the outdated and harmful laws of cannabis prohibition despite the changing social and legal climate bring up the question of intent; how does law enforcement justify these raids when 51% of Canadians polled in a survey by NRG Research Group stated that they were in favor of legalization, with 33% against the motion? When it becomes obvious that current police action is not to protect or serve the majority of Canadians, one must ask: “to whose benefit are these police operations executed?”
Furthermore, Marc and Jodie Emery along with three other Cannabis Culture employees were released after only two days on $30,000 bail, under the condition that they may not possess or use cannabis in any form, operate any cannabis related business, leave the province, and may not communicate with each other.
One has to wonder how the police would enforce non-communication between a married couple.
Greenline Systems is a cannabis technology solutions company based in Vancouver. Interested in our monthly newsletter? Contact us at info@getgreenline.co
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