Marijuana activist predicts high demand with American tourist among clientele Windsor will be among the first cities in Ontario to host a cannabis store once pot is legalized next summer. The province on Friday identified the first 14 communities that will operate stand-alone outlets for recreational pot sales by July 2018. The Wynne Liberals announced in September that the LCBO will oversee 40 such retail locations across Ontario by the projected legalization date set by Ottawa. "It's going to get nuts," local cannabis activist Jon Liedtke predicts if Windsor and Essex County end up sharing only one such retail outlet. [continues 663 words]
Chill out, Windsor. The head of the task force which recommended Canada legalize cannabis said cities like Windsor need to prepare but that they shouldn't fear going to pot. While "people are right to be concerned" about how Ottawa proceeds with legalization and regulation, Anne McLellan told the Star that members of her task force were satisfied that places like Colorado and Washington - two of a growing number of American states where pot has been legalized - are going in the right direction. [continues 596 words]
Dangling uselessly at her side, Jan Rieveley's right arm has become a "paper weight." A bad fall in a dark cave in Ohio four years ago tore nerves previously made weaker from cancer-radiation treatment. "It's pain 24/7," says the 61-year-old owner of a small Riverside business. Rieveley said her previous opiate "cocktail" of Percocets and other pain medications permitted her to work about two hours a week. Rieveley hated what those opioids were doing to her. So, six months ago, her doctor prescribed pot, and it worked wonderfully. Her life on pot has improved to the point she's working a couple of days a week. "I like control in my life," Rieveley said of her decision to avoid the powerful opiates of the pharmaceutical companies. [continues 940 words]
Security director says it's unclear whether move will cause delays DETROIT - Could a pot-smoking Canada trigger congestion along the United States border? As the Trudeau government presses ahead with plans to legalize the sale and purchase of pot, some are wondering whether it could result in longer wait times at the approximate 120 official ports of entry along the northern border. "It's an unknown now, but it could have the effect of really slowing down, not just travellers, but truckers, too," said Stan Korosec, director of security and Canadian government relations for the Detroit International Bridge Co. [continues 599 words]
Aphria gobbles up flower grower to boost production of marijuana The head of local medical marijuana grower Aphria is convinced Canadians will be legally consuming pot recreationally within two years, and his company is preparing to meet the inevitable spike in demand. "Recreational - that's a definite," Aphria Inc. president and CEO Vic Neufeld told the Star. Selling its first Leamington-grown bud barely a year ago, Aphria on Thursday announced it was gobbling up its host farm operation, CF Greenhouses, in a multimillion-dollar deal ahead of its next major production expansion. [continues 567 words]
Facility Aims to Dispel Myths of Medical Marijuana Medical marijuana should become easier to obtain for local patients with the opening next month of a new medical clinic in Windsor specializing in cannabis treatment. Those behind the local branch of the Canadian Cannabis Clinics - the sixth such facility in Ontario - also hope the facility can help educate local physicians about the therapeutic and health benefits of pot, as well as to help dispel the myths. "Definitely, some doctors are hostile to it," said CCC spokesman Ronan Levy. "Our experience has been that attitudes, quite negative at first, start to shift as doctors are exposed (to medical marijuana), and they become more open to it." [continues 637 words]
WHILE MDS QUESTION IF MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION, WINDSOR TO HOST CANNABIS CLINIC Dr. Tony Hammer treats drug addicts and people seeking pain relief - the latter sometimes feeding the former - but don't expect him to jump aboard the medical marijuana bandwagon. "I am utterly incapable of distinguishing between those who need it and those who enjoy it," said Hammer. He's convinced most of the tens of thousands of Canadians prescribed medical marijuana are instead using it "recreationally." [continues 1929 words]
'There's No Stoners Here' Long-time greenhouse grower Cole Cacciavillani, his family a pillar of the Leamington community, jokes about acquaintances made during nearly three years of personal research into growing marijuana. The challenge in expanding from geraniums and poinsettias for retail chains like Costco into marijuana for medical patients was most of the existing expertise was built up around a crop still largely illegal. "The problem with this whole industry is it's been mostly underground.... We have to make it legitimate," said Cacciavillani. He insists he's never ingested the new product he's now licensed to grow and sell. [continues 1207 words]
Secure Facility Could Employ 50 by End of Year LAKESHORE - The birth of a new industry for the region was announced Tuesday with a $12-million investment in a high-security facility that could employ 50 people by the end of the year to grow medical marijuana. "We stand ready to meet every expectation that Health Canada has for the safe, highly controlled, professional management of this medicinal tool for doctors," said Joe Byrne, board chairman of the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation and an investor in CEN Biotech, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Creative Edge Nutrition. [continues 697 words]
Rules to Change for Medicinal Pot A local businessman hopes Windsor can jump in on the ground floor of a Canadian industry so new it hasn't even started yet, but one which has already caught the attention of police and other authorities. City council this week received notification that a private application is being made to Health Canada for establishment of a commercial production and distribution facility for medical marijuana, with a location identified in the Windsor Industrial Park north of the airport lands. [continues 959 words]
A former Windsor woman was found guilty Monday for her principal role in the city's biggest-ever uncovered marijuana grow operation. Dung Sau Ho, 35, was the last of seven members of a Toronto family to go to trial this fall, more than four years after city police seized almost 1,100 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of more than $1.2 million from two South Windsor homes during raids on June 22, 2004. "The Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt ... that these structures were devoted to the production of cannabis marijuana," Superior Court Justice Lynne Leitch read from a written ruling. "These were extensive operations ... of high commercial value." [continues 235 words]
Western University Football Star Gets Three Years For Ecstasy, Gun A budding football star has been forced to set aside any dreams of going professional after a Windsor judge on Monday handed him a three-year prison sentence for his role in a drug-smuggling operation. Pulled over by Canadian border guards at the Ambassador Bridge on Nov. 15, 2007, Olusola Olumogba, 23, was arrested after ziplock baggies containing 1,320 ecstasy pills were recovered from the trunk of his rented Dodge Charger and US$105,015 was found in the spare tire. Olumogba also carried an unloaded .25-calibre semi-automatic pistol in his waistband and had another US$3,492 in a pocket. [continues 340 words]
Getting Guns Off Streets Also Focus For Vince Power Sweeping hard drugs and guns from city streets will be a top priority for the Windsor Police Service's new superintendent of investigations. Insp. Vince Power, who starts his new posting Aug. 3, promises to "actively and aggressively search out these people" contributing to some of the worst local crimes. As elsewhere across the country, Windsor's overall crime rate is going down, but crimes involving hard drugs, such as crack cocaine, and firearms, particularly handguns, are bucking that trend. [continues 260 words]
A Toronto area commercial trucker accused of smuggling 21 kilograms of pot across the Ambassador Bridge appeared to not believe his ears when a judge ruled Monday there was insufficient evidence for a conviction. It took a few minutes before reality sunk in and Pius Idahosa, 36, realized he wasn't going to jail. When it finally hit him outside Superior Court Justice Mary Nolan's courtroom that he was a free man, he struggled to a lobby chair before bursting into tears and sobbing loudly with relief. [continues 362 words]
Joint RCMP-DEA Effort Smashes Ring That Brought Ecstasy Tablets Across Border A smuggling ring that used minors and senior citizens as drug mules to ferry large quantities of methamphetamine-laced ecstasy tablets from Toronto via the Windsor-Detroit tunnel into Michigan was busted up by police in a series of raids this week on both sides of the border. Members of the RCMP drug section in Windsor executed search warrants at two residences in Windsor and Tecumseh Wednesday and arrested 10 people. An additional arrest was made Thursday morning, bringing to 13 the number of locals among 25 individuals charged as a result of a six-month joint investigation led by the RCMP and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and including the Canada Border Services Agency and the Sterling Heights police department. Two of the Canadians charged, brothers [Name redacted] and [Name redacted] , are in jail in Windsor and Ohio, respectively, for unrelated offences. [continues 559 words]
More than 21 police tactical teams -- including officers from Windsor - -- fanned out across southern Ontario Thursday, arresting dozens of motorcycle gang members in pre-dawn raids targeting Hells Angels, Vagabonds and their associates. "Project Tandem is quite likely the largest investigation of this type in Ontario history," OPP spokesman Sgt. Bob Paterson said of an 18-month operation involving approximately 500 police officers. With the raids and cleanup operations continuing through Thursday, Paterson said details of the charges, court appearances and seized property -- weapons, narcotics and vehicles -- would not be divulged until a news conference today in Toronto. [continues 334 words]
A Windsor Superior Court judge said he is putting drug traffickers on notice that incarceration will be the price for anyone setting up marijuana grow houses in residential areas. "Jail ... is a definite deterrent," Justice Joseph Quinn said Friday in sentencing Trung Kien Ha to 18 months in prison for converting a South Windsor home into a "sophisticated grow operation" with a bypassed hydro meter. Crown attorney Richard Pollock, who had argued for a 21-month jail term, said it was one of the harshest sentences ever meted out locally for such an offence to a perpetrator with an otherwise spotless record. Defence lawyer Mark Kramer had sought a sentence of house arrest for the 34-year-old father of two young daughters. [continues 326 words]
Cop Killing A Risk Officers Face Daily, Says Federal Prosecutor A local federal prosecutor says the alleged drug deal leading to Const. John Atkinson's slaying plays out almost on a daily basis in the streets of Windsor. "Drug squad officers in Windsor are making arrests every day in similar circumstances," said lawyer Richard Pollock. And when it comes to drug trafficking in Windsor, guns play a big role, local authorities warn, echoing what federal Justice Minister Vic Toews told The Star Monday when he described guns as "the tool of the trade" for drug dealers. [continues 391 words]
2 Accused In Court Via Video Link While unwilling to comment specifically on the shooting death of Windsor Const. John Atkinson, federal Justice Minister Vic Toews said it highlights the need for tougher Canadian laws on gun crime. "The prevalence of these guns on our streets, it's not acceptable," he told The Star Monday. The federal Conservatives are hoping to scare illegal guns off the streets by legislating stiff mandatory minimum jail sentences for simple possession of a restricted weapon. [continues 853 words]
A Windsor judge rules today whether a local man, convicted of operating a sophisticated marijuana grow house, goes to jail or is sentenced to house arrest and ordered to preach the evils of pot to his church congregation. Hung Tuan Tran, a 29-year-old married father of two, pleaded guilty this month to charges of marijuana production and trafficking and hydro theft after police raided a Forest Glade home a year ago, seizing drugs with an estimated street value of more than $400,000, including 355 marijuana plants. [continues 331 words]
