Stirring the pot
Raids on homes and businesses resulted in 10 people being arrested and charged with 69 drug and firearm offences, as police say they will continue to enforce existing law.
Raids on homes and businesses from Windsor to Antigonish resulted in 10 people being arrested and charged with 69 drug and firearm offences.
The RCMP Halifax District Street Crime Enforcement Unit, with assistance from units in Windsor and Antigonish, capped an eight-month investigation into marijuana storefronts with the arrests on Thursday.
Police seized 29 kilograms of marijuana, 10 kilograms of cannabis oil, 45 kilograms of cannabis edibles, seven kilograms of cannabis resin (shatter), 600 grams of cannabis resin (hash) and more than $10,000 in cash.
Marijuana is due to be legalized across the country next year, but RCMP say the current laws will be stringently enforced in Nova Scotia until then.
“We are in the business of responding to complaints about criminal activity. If complaints we receive about criminal activity fall into that category, we will enforce them,” said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, who was asked if police will continue to visit the businesses that call themselves dispensaries, but that police term storefronts. “The only legal means of obtaining marijuana is from Health Canadaapproved producers via the mail.”
RCMP and Halifax Regional Police searched homes on Gammon Crescent in Cole Harbour, Memorial Drive in Westphal, Frederick Avenue in Halifax and John Gorham Lane in Bedford.
Police also raided five Tasty Budd’s stores, saying the outlets attempted to look like legitimate businesses but weren’t.
The website for Tasty Budd’s — which has a handful of stores in other provinces — includes the slogan Business with Integrity, and presents itself as a “medical dispensary.”
Owner Malachy Nathaniel McMeekin, 35, is among those charged.
Police allege the people arrested were using marijuana storefronts to traffic in cocaine and marijuana, sell drugs knowing they were going to be resold for criminal profit, sell marijuana in quantities well over amounts prescribed and sell marijuana without knowing where it came from or knowing whether it had been laced with other chemicals.
Mounties also seized a loaded handgun, a shotgun, drug paraphernalia and three ATMs.
Jarrett Randall Shrum, 31, of Bedford, faces 17 charges, including trafficking cocaine and marijuana and possession of a prohibited firearm with readily available ammunition.
McMeekin, of Cole Harbour, has been charged with three counts of trafficking, possession of property obtained by proceeds of crime and unauthorized possession of a firearm.
Norman Arthur Lawrence, 46, of Westphal, has been charged with seven offences, including three counts of trafficking.
Josh Robert Byers, 42, of Halifax; Brandon Richard Lively, 29, of Beaver Bank; and Connor Brian Haryett, 26, of Dartmouth, all face three counts of trafficking.
Justin Wade Wile, 31, of Windsor, and Bryan Jacob Canavan, 25, of MacKay Settlement, have both been charged with trafficking in marijuana and cannabis resin, and Gillian Sarah Sampson, 28, of Antigonish, has been charged with trafficking in marijuana.