As governments lay groundwork for legal recreational pot next spring, Toronto police keep raiding medicinal marijuana dispensaries and want the public to help them continue.

The pot sellers remain defiant, with one shuttered shop urging buyers to visit a sister store until it can reopen. 

Officers raided three dispensaries Monday, seizing 21.5 pounds of pot products, $15,841.05 in cash and laying Criminal Code drug charges against six men.

It was the second raid of S.W.E.D. dispensary at 1898 Danforth Ave., which was among 43 shops busted in late May when 90 owners, managers and clerks were hit with trafficking charges.

Back in the day, growing weed at home involved you forfeiting an entire closet or room in your home, along with endless hours of research, constant attention and, of course, the risk of arrest. But now that cannabis is legal in multiple regions of the United States, the industry is booming with new and creative ways to grow the sticky icky indoors. 

The possible sale of pot in LCBO stores has bureaucrats trying to make sense of the hazy marijuana business, taking notes on weed’s funky street names and tamping down any government hopes of a cash crop on the scale of booze, documents show.

Internal slides obtained by Global News through freedom of information show the state liquor giant pondering a range of issues surrounding weed retailing as the drug goes from black market to legit commodity under the Trudeau government’s legalization drive.

Contrary to common RCMP wisdom, organized crime groups play a relatively small role in Canada’s underground cannabis trade, and the majority of people behind the country’s illegal grow operations and dispensaries are otherwise law-abiding, a group of academics and small-scale marijuana businesses have told the federal legalization task force.

A written submission co-authored by a prominent criminologist on behalf of a drug-policy advocacy group cites government data that showed just 5 per cent of marijuana criminal cases over an eight-year period had links to organized crime or street gangs.

And the groups warn that overestimating the role of organized crime will create a new regime that will be too restrictive and simply perpetuate the black market.

There’s a class in Windsor that will teach you to grow cannabis. 

The lounge providing it already offers patents a spot to devour their medication.

Leo Lucier, the proprietor of the lounge, hopes the federal authorities will legislate legalization in his favour.

Since hashish use for medicinal functions is a constitutional proper, upheld by the courts, Lucier, like so many others, is retaining a watchful eye for the brand new laws the Liberals should announce by Aug. 24.

And, in fact, as a substitute of merely imposing the regulation, the police are sticking their nostril into the controversy with their opinions.

The mother of a child with a rare, life-threatening illness says nurses are refusing to administer the medicine that most effectively treats his seizures — all because of hospital politics surrounding children and medical marijuana.

Maria Niembro’s 11-year-old son, Francesco, has CFC Syndrome (Cardio-Facio-Cutaneous). “There are only 450 people like him in the world,” Niembro says. “I hit the lottery with him.”

That lottery though, is one no parent would ever wish to win. Francesco is non verbal, has severe developmental delays, is fed through a G-tube, and is plagued by life-threatening seizures.

His bedroom looks like a hospital room. From the industrial bed, to the dresser loaded with medications, to the cot where Maria sleeps beside him.

Tweed is taking its grass party to new heights with a summer bash on the lawn of its marijuana factory in Smiths Falls.

On Saturday, Aug. 13, the licensed marijuana producer is inviting 5,000 guests to its Front Yard Shindig right on the sprawling yard of Tweed’s headquarters. The “family friendly” concert is free and will include local bands BlakDenim, a hip-hop, funk and soul act, and The Balconies, an alternative ensemble, as well as East Coast indie rockers The Joel Plaskett Emergency.

Food trucks and water stations will be onsite, and there will be ample free parking.

All it will take is a quick neighborhood stroll for the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to confront the United States’ stunningly inconsistent marijuana laws. The president cannot legally light up a joint at home, of course — it’s federal property, after all — yet a private party down the street would be chill, thanks to the District of Columbia’s legalization vote. But, even there, POTUS couldn’t legally buy any weed. How far might he or she go to address it come 2017?

No drug comes close to cannabis when it comes to the number of criminal offences.

The Canadian medical cannabis industry continues to be a bright spot in the cannabis sector as its constituents are led by management teams that continue to execute on business initiatives and create value for shareholders.

One the biggest developments in 2015 was the victory by Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party as they will make cannabis legalization a priority. The outcome of the campaign was a huge victory for the Canadian cannabis industry and it has already severed as a catalyst for stocks levered to the cannabis industry.

Catalysts Ahead