Marijuana dispensaries reopening doors in London

Two marijuana dispensaries in London are taking customers again, after police raids in early March at five shops led to a variety of drug-related charges for eight people.

Tasty Budd’s on Wharncliffe Road South is open for business, while Healing Health on Dundas Street is offering client consultations. A spokesperson for Chronic Hub Social Club confirmed the store on Dundas Street aims to reopen, while two other dispensaries could not be reached.

READ MORE: Several arrested in simultaneous raids at 5 illegal marijuana dispensaries

“These people who operate dispensaries obviously believe in what they’re doing,” pot activist Jodie Emery told the Craig Needles Show on AM980 Monday morning.

“It’s similar to any other business that gets robbed. When men come in with guns and masks and take all the money and all the products from the store, most businesses and banks would reopen the next day because they need to make a living. They need to survive.”

Ian Dawkins is a spokesperson for Chronic Hub Social Club and president of the Cannabis Commerce Association. He says dispensaries exist because the mail-order system where clients are given prescriptions to buy from licensed producers is broken.

READ MORE: Federal government’s pot czar visits London

“The system has been letting patients down, and they need to have access to their medicine when they need it, how they need it. It’s important that people remember that — that this is not just wilful civil disobedience from people who don’t want to obey the law. This is people forced to take their personal medical situation into their own hands,” Dawkins said.

Canabo Medical Corp. owns 15 referral-only clinics — branded as Cannabinoid Medical Clinic — throughout Canada that prescribe medical marijuana; its London location opened up on March 30.

Aphria, one of 24 licensed marijuana producers in Ontario, owns a 16.6-per-cent share of Canabo Medical Corp.

“We are strictly a professional medical clinic,” said the company’s president and CEO John Philpott, emphasizing they don’t carry any cannabis products in their Thompson Road clinic, and only accept patients with referrals from a doctor or specialist.

“Dispensaries are illegal, and we inform our patients that if they go to dispensaries, they cannot be a part of our program,” he said.

READ MORE: Marijuana legalization bill to be tabled Thursday

The Liberal government is tabling legislation in the House of Commons Thursday, outlining how marijuana will be legalized and regulated. It’ll cover everything from how many plants can be grown inside a home, to how old you have to be to buy it.

Last week, the government confirmed it wants the legalization process finished by July 1.