Two weeks ago, the Halifax RCMP arrested three people associated with Halifax Compassionate Use Club, which connects medical marijuana users to growers.
Chris Enns, who is president of the club, was charged with trafficking in marijuana, hash and mushroom, and with growing marijuana. He was arrested at the Compassionate Use Club on Highway 7 in Porters Lake. The Club is in the upper level of a building shared with Enns’ business, The Grow-Op Shop, which sells growing equipment. Another man and a woman were arrested at Enns’ East Chezzetcook home, and charged with trafficking marijuana. Police have not released their names.
The arrest sent shook waves through the medical marijuana community, and last week about two dozen supporters and members of the club showed up at a press conference in Porters Lake. Enns and Sherri Reeve, the club’s vice-president, told reporters that they suspect an RCMP officer had posed as a medical marijuana patient in order to get information that was used in the search warrant. They insist they have only supplied marijuana to people with a medical licence for it.
The mushrooms were for her personal use, said Reeve. Over $50,000 in cash seized during the raid belonged to the Grow-Op Shop, not the club, said Enns.
Scott MacRae, who speaks for the RCMP, will not say how the investigation that led to the arrests was started, or if undercover operatives were used.
Do the arrests reflect a view on the RCMP’s part that providing medical marijuana is a criminal offence?
“The police will only act if there’s a violation of a law that’s on the books,” answers MacRae. “In this case, they believed there was trafficking of controlled substances.”
Is it the RCMP’s position that medical marijuana users can possess marijuana but they can’t acquire it?
“That’s pretty well it,” says MacRae. “Will these things change over time? That’s another question, for politicians, and the community.”
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2013.
Wow. Another article on this topic that is totally misinformed. What a shame. There were ZERO plants found and no one was charged with growing plants or trafficking mushrooms. also no one was at the house at the time so no one was arrested there. Everyone was arrested at the stores. In fact, no one has even been “officially” charged yet. The list of inaccuracies is enormous for such a small article. Gee if the Coast can’t get this right… my god all Tim had to do is a second of research to get his facts straight. Too bad he didn’t bother.
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives don’t support the medical use of marijuana and it’s obvious that a few senior officers in the local RCMP organization agree.
Rather than concentrate scarce resources on hard targets such as organized international criminal gangs utilizing Nova Scotia as an entry point for high value drug shipments, they choose to break up ‘medical marijuana rings’.
I support my local law enforcement, but not in these ‘witch hunt’ activities against the medical marijuana community. It’s just lazy police work.