One of BC’s best known pot activists opens new shop in Ottawa
Posted February 22, 2017 5:46 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) — The Princess of Pot was in Ottawa for the opening of a new marijuana shop on Bank Street in Centretown Wednesday.
Jodie Emery was at the opening of Cannabis Culture – a franchise of the store her husband, Marc Emery, started in the mid 1990s.
Unlike a dispensary, Emery said this shop is open to both medical and recreational users.
She compares the business to a coffee shop or grocery store, where you can pick out your product.
While the Liberals are expected to introduce marijuana legislation later this year, Emery believes it will be prohibitive, and wants to provide access to everyone.
“But every day, more and more raids happen. More people are being arrested. And the only way we’ve ever changed the laws for marijuana in Canada, is through the courts, after being arrested and being charged. So, civil disobedience, breaking unjust laws, that’s really the best way to change the laws when it comes to marijuana,” said Emery.
She added that franchisees must agree to pay the legal fees for any employees who are arrested if a shop is raided.
Nadine, an employee, was hired earlier this week and said she’s aware she could be arrested at any time.
“It was something that was very well explained to me, and then after that, it was basically, ‘ok, well do I want to take this risk?’”
However, she believes giving everyone access to marijuana is important.
Steve Briggs is the owner of a medical marijuana dispensary in the Toronto area and a medical marijuana user.
He was in Ottawa to support the shop, and said he’s used marijuana recreationally and medically for 30 years — most recently to treat anxiety, depression, and pain from four car accidents in three years.
Fifteen prescription painkillers and other medications weren’t helping, and now he uses marijuana exclusively — mostly by producing oils and putting it into food.
The opening of the Centretown location comes at a time several dispensaries across the city have been raided by Ottawa Police and several employees charged with possessing and trafficking.
