After a Sept. 26 raid on two properties, two women, both 50 years of age, two men from Quebec, a 43-year-old from Laval, and a 36-year-old from Montreal, and four more men were arrested and charged with producing and possessing marijuana for trafficking purposes. The case was reported by CBC news.
All eight people charged were workers at one of the two properties, and the two men from Quebec had been charged with the same offenses in July at a massive grow-op on nearby Strawberry Lane.
On August 3, according to the Toronto Star, the two Quebec men were charged with running an illegal cannabis grow-op in King Township after York Regional Police seized 288 kilograms of harvested cannabis and more than 4,000 plants, which police say have an estimated street value of $6.5 million.
The illegal grow-op was found after the York Regional Police Service’s organized-crime bureau executed a search warrant July 27 at 570 Strawberry Lane in the Holland Marsh region of King township, after stumbling upon the industrial-scale grow-op during a safety inspection with bylaw officers just a day earlier.
Police found three Health Canada licenses at the facility. Each license allows for the holder to grow 875 plants on their behalf for medical purposes, however, the number of plants found far exceeded the limit, say authorities. The illegal operation was dismantled.
Exploiting the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes rules
Of the two properties raided last week, one had four licenses to grow 1,140 plants, while the other had three licenses to grow 1,121 plants. Police found 400 cannabis plants were being grown illegally in the two locations.
These latest arrests have raised concerns that organized crime has moved into licensed medical marijuana grow operations, exploiting the federal Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes regulations, according to Constable Andy Pattenden, a spokesperson for York Regional Police.
“Our investigators are concerned about this trend,” Pattenden said. “Despite the licenses in this area, there continues to be overgrowing of the allowable amounts. We do believe that there are links to organized crime involved in these operations.”
Interestingly, in a Globe and Mail investigation last year, they found about 600 “super-growers” across Canada with prescriptions permitting them to have on hand, at any time, at least 244 plants and 35 kilograms of dried bud, and this is far more than any individual patient could feasibly ingest.
A warning shot across the bow of Canadian #marijuana producers. Wed #HealthCanada partially suspended the license of #Ascent (#ASNT #CSE $0.77) – $200M MCap! For failure to comply with certain regulations. #marijuanastocks #cannabis #tsx #tsxv pic.twitter.com/cHv6VEHjE9
— MicroCap.com (@microcap_com) September 28, 2018
Some of the problems to be addressed
The regulations stipulate a designated grower can have up to four licenses per address, although it confounds the imagination why anyone using medical marijuana would need four licenses. Basically, this turns the single production site into a cannabis farm.
But because the growers are not licensed producers, they are avoiding Health Canada regulations on growing, security and quality control. And Pattenden said this is very concerning.
“The concern we have here is the quantity of plants being grown,” he said. “Under this system, there are no checks and balances from Health Canada. They are able to grow this cannabis at a very low cost.” He added that police believe the majority is sold on the black market.
“These investigations are raising significant concerns, as there is once again a blatant disregard for licensed grow limits,” York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe said in a news release on Tuesday.
“We are concerned the legalization of marijuana on October 17 will increase overall demand and organized crime is poised and ready to supply that demand.”
U.S. authorities seize nearly 750 kg of marijuana at Canadian border October 3, 2018
In related news, the Winnipeg Free Press is reporting that U.S. border officials say they’ve seized nearly 750 kilograms of marijuana at the Canadian border over the past several weeks.
All the packages of pot were found in mail shipments entering the U.S. from Canada, but did not provide details. The first shipment of drugs was found in a mail truck at the Bluewater Bridge in Port Huron, Mich. on Aug. 28. There were 14 packages weighing more than 136 kilograms. Another 63 packages surfaced over the next 10 days, bringing the total amount of drugs seized to about 748 kilograms.
