Major Police Crackdown on Medical Cannabis Dispensaries in Toronto

Although medicinal marijuana is legal in Canada, only those outlets which have been duly licensed by Health Canada, the country’s Ministry of Health, can sell their product to people who carry a prescription. However, Toronto police believe there are close to one hundred unlicensed dispensaries, where recreational marijuana is also being sold to the general public, although the legalization of its recreational use (contemplated for 2017, in keeping with an election promise by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) is still pending.

According to Toronto police, the raids, which resulted in the seizure of 924 kilograms of marijuana as well as edibles such as biscuits and sweets, were prompted by "significant complains" from community members, who claimed that these stores were selling cannabis products with "inaccurate information" on the amount of THC they contained, thus leading to a "genuine health concern".

The reaction among both users and the general public has been one of disapproval towards an operation widely regarded as disproportionate, especially following announcements that recreational cannabis would be made legal in the country within the following year. This came to a heard when, Mark Saunders, the Toronto police chief, met with booing from activists last Friday, while giving a press conference to explain the operation (known as “Project Claudia”).

The mayor of Toronto, John Tory, justified these actions on the grounds that there was a proliferation, "verging on being out of control", of illegal dispensaries, and referred to a poll showing a significant decrease in public support for such stores. He also said that, in the course of the previous week, the licensing department, faced with the detection of 83 illegal dispensaries, had given due warning in writing to 78 dispensary owners.

Authorities claim that many of these stores appeared in the city in the wake of a crackdown on dispensaries in Vancouver (the first Canadian city to regulate stores of this type), which was partially due to a supposedly laxer legislation than that in Toronto.

It is suspected that many of the dispensaries that were shut down in Vancouver have reopened in Toronto, in an attempt to find a new location that contravenes zoning bylaws, which only allow the distribution of medicinal marijuana in those premises authorised by the government’s health agency.

There are, however, more than a few people who regard these recent events as ridiculous, since cannabis is set to be legalised within a year. In fact, the hashtag #ProjectClaudia became a Trending Topic in Canada on Thursday evening; and many Twitter users dismissed the raids as a squandering of taxpayer-supported police resources.

The store owners concerned have remained defiant in the face of the seizures, sometimes to the extent of reopening their venues during the weekend following the police visits and serving their customers at the door. Others, however, have simply chosen to close down their establishments.

In fact, there are many who believe that, if there is a problem with the proliferation of dispensaries in the city, then surely this should be addressed with sensible legislation. Repression is always a mistaken response, which threatens store owners and is frightening patients, making it difficult for tens of thousands of Toronto’s inhabitants to gain decent access to cannabis.