Aleafia‘s board chair Julian Fantino is best known for saying of cannabis, in 2015:
Leafly
- “I am completely opposed to the legalization of marijuana“
Twitter—Julian Fantino - “I see legalizing it or putting it in shops as trying to normalize narcotics, when the truth is there is nothing normal about it. It’s a mind-altering drug that causes impairments and like cigarettes is not healthy,” and
Toronto Sun - “Justin Trudeau will make harmful drugs more accessible in Vaughan [Ontario]. […] Legalization is an irresponsible policy that only puts dangerous drugs on the streets and in our communities, and sends the wrong message to children that recreational drug use is okay.”
York Region - He also compared legalizing cannabis to legalizing murder, in 2004. CBC Toronto
In 2014, Fantino, former Toronto police chief and OPP commissioner, attacked then-MP Justin Trudeau for admitting he smoked cannabis while in office, and in 2015 Fantino said if he was offered the opportunity to be well-paid to lend his name to an LP, he said “I would never do it.”
- When he joined MED LP Aleafia two years later, he argued, “We’re not in the marijuana business. We’re a health delivery system.”
CBC Toronto - Fantino will have a hard time maintaining that position as One Plant, a REC brand in which Aleafia owns a 9.9% stake, applies for a license to open a large REC store in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
BlogTO - In a shot across the bow of legacy cannabis culture, One Plant’s proposed location in a former supermarket at 241 Augusta is nearly directly across the street from Abi Roach’s beloved Hotbox Lounge, emblematic of pre-legalization anti-corporate cannabis in Toronto.
Toronto Sun - Detractors remember when as chief of police, Fantino oversaw dispensary raids in Kensington Market, and they’re not happy. One municipal activist is encouraging Torontonians to go beyond boycotting and file objections with Ontario cannabis regulators, who might deny the application if it receives too many complaints.
Twitter—Pedro Marques, Caryma Sa’d
Quick Hits
- A Jimmy’s Cannabis Shop franchise in Cranbrook BC thought they were paying the RCMP a compliment when they covered one window with a large photo of historic Mountie Sam Steele, who “brought law and order to the West” in the 1800s. The RCMP asked them to remove it, but ultimately relented.
CBC British Columbia, Rossland News - The North Vancouver RCMP caused a brief social media sensation by Tweeting an account of stopping a driver who smelled of cannabis, finding a bag of cannabis in his car, giving the driver a sobriety test that he passed, and giving him back his cannabis, “Because those are the laws.”
GrowthOp, Twitter—North Vancouver RCMP
