Last week, I biked from one midtown medical “weed” clinic to another with one purpose only – to see how easy it was to sign up.

Armed only with a story about needing weed for my “acute anxiety,” I returned home four hours later a client of four illegal weed dispensaries.

Each one told me, when questioned, that they were no longer needing prescriptions, only photo ID. I was asked to fill out a form which included listing my “medical issues” and agreeing to at least 10 different conditions that included recognizing what I was doing was “illegal” and that I was not to take the weed across the border.

After signing up, I was shown the emporium with containers full of different kinds of hash – reminding me of one of the popular bubble tea shops. The products had names like “Sweet Tooth,” “Kush,” “Kish,” and “Super Kush” and sold for anywhere form $7 to $11 per gram.

I left each one with the same story: That I needed to bring my wife back, who suffered from chronic pain (true) but was shy (not true), before purchasing anything.

Only one, the Canna Clinic at Yonge and Eglinton, which was busy with the comings and goings of those needing “medical” attention, refused to sell me anything until I got a doctor’s note. I had indicated on my form I’d never used weed for medical purposes before.

My latest investigation began at the end of May when I happened upon a man trying to solicit another – someone who looked to be a dealer – outside the illegal Canna Clinic near my home. When I suggested to them that we didn’t want “drug deals” going on in our residential neighbourhood, the suspected dealer – a large man – got in my face and began screaming obscenities at me.

While the encounter was not intimidating to me, I know the illegal clinics – there are 60 in total in Toronto – have been the source of many complaints from residents and businesses, largely due to the pungent odours they emit, the robberies they have precipitated, the legal business trade they’ve driven away and the type of characters they bring into a family neighbourhood.

I reached out for comment to the operators of Toronto’s seven Canna Clinics, which are based in Vancouver, and with the owners of the Eden Clinic, a Bayview Ave. shop I visited last week. Neither responded.

“It’s frustrating...I’m getting a lot of complaints from rational people,” says Mayor John Tory, noting that they’re hard to manage because they keep popping up so fast.

He says, no sooner is one put out of business, another pops up again.

“The police are doing what they can,” says Tory, noting it takes a lot of resources to enforce them.

Supt. Reuben Stroble of 53 Division says they’ve managed to reduce the 12 clinics in the area under his jurisdiction to five by raiding them again and again.

He says some of the smaller places couldn’t recover after the police confiscated all their money and drugs but other places – like the Canna Clinics – “have more resources and backing” and were able to open up again.

“For some going in and arresting people and shutting it down for the day is the price of doing business,” he says, adding that the big owners “lawyer up very well,” hoping to delay court appearances until weed becomes legal.

He feels organized crime is behind many of these clinics, especially considering the amount of drugs being sold and the fact that the product is usually coming in to the clinics “in garbage bags.”

“Right now, we’re seeing what an unregulated market looks like...it’s a free-for-all and there’s no controls period,” he says.

Mark Sraga, director of investigation services for Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS), says real medical marijuana facilities are strictly licensed by Health Canada to operate in industrial zones of the city only, where they can grow, manufacture and distribute medical weed.

The 60 illegal dispensaries currently operating in the city have nothing to do with medical marijuana, he says, and sometimes landlords rent the locations not really knowing what’s in there.

“They are, what I characterize, as ‘bricks and mortar drug dealers’...they will sell to anybody who walks in off the street,” he said last week, noting the only recourse for MLS is to lay charges under the city’s zoning bylaw or when they sell edible products, under their business licensing laws.

Sraga emphasizes that the illegal clinics are in it for one reason — the “sheer amount of money they can make.”

“These dispensaries are doing it because they’ve seized on what they perceive as a window of opportunity,” he said, speculating there will be far fewer of these rogue places once the federal government legalizes it and stipulates where it can be sold.

Sraga says in February they submitted an application to the superior court seeking an order preventing the seven Canna Clinics from operating in the city of Toronto. The application will be heard Sept. 25 and 26.)

SLevy@postmedia.com

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Reuben Stroble, superintendent of 53 Division, has some advice for city residents who don’t like the existence of illegal weed clinics in their neighbourhood: Lobby your politicians at all levels of government.

He says city councillors, MPPs and MPs really need to look at July 1, 2018 and think about what the “framework” will be once pot is legalized.

Stroble emphasizes that based on the current experience, they should not be in community zones or even near residential neighbourhoods—and that the government has to be aware who is selling the legalized product.

“I’m hoping when the model finally does come out, there’s not going to be any place for these local fly-by-night dispensaries operated by organized crime,” he says. “It needs to be no different than the sale of alcohol...provincially-managed and controlled and the locations government-run.”

- Sue-Ann Levy