Medical marijuana dispensaries owner challenges constitutionality of possession law

By The Canadian Press

A Toronto owner of two medical marijuana dispensaries says he was arrested under a law that was unconstitutional.

Police charged Marek Stupak in May 2016 with possession for the purposes of trafficking following city-wide raids.

But Stupak argues the law was not constitutional because, at the time of the raids, the government did not have a valid medical marijuana program in place.

His lawyer says Ontario’s highest court had earlier found that Parliament could not criminalize marijuana use without such a program.

The lawyer tells Superior Court that judges regularly struck down restrictions on reasonable access by patients to medicinal pot.

Dispensaries that sprang up to provide that access were among targets of the police crackdown that led to Stupak’s charges.

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