The cannabis crusader behind Vancouver’s largest and laxest chain of dispensaries says he will continue selling small amounts of pot to customers — even if they can’t prove they need it for medicinal purposes — until the drug is legalized or he is again charged with trafficking.

Don Briere says his eight-store Weeds Glass and Gifts chain will continue its practice of selling under a gram of combustible or edible cannabis to those without a federal medicinal licence or a note from a naturopath or doctor. The colourful 63-year-old entrepreneur says public opinion has shifted further in his favour from 2004 when his Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop was surrounded by the VPD’s emergency response team and he was charged with trafficking for selling recreational pot over the counter.

“Worst case is we would more than likely have some charges against us, then we would go to court and we would call it criminal misuse of public resources and we would demand that who ever’s doing this be charged, not us,” Briere told The Sun Monday as he helped open his eighth location near Broadway and Collingwood Street in Kitsilano.

“We’re pushing for total, total legalization,” Briere said. “We’re making it as easy as possible (to buy), we’re trying to help people here.”

A recent Sun investigation found two of Briere’s Weeds stores were the easiest of five separate dispensaries for a reporter to buy edible pot products. While a note from a naturopath or doctor stating that the patient benefited from using marijuana was required at most dispensaries, at both Weeds locations the reporter bought edibles as a non-member without a medical note.

Such customers can buy up to a gram a day with a temporary card at Weeds stores, but Briere said his employees will “egg them on” to see a doctor for a proper medicinal prescription or note.

“If somebody comes in in a wheelchair do I have to call their doctor to let them use some pain relief?” Briere said.

Briere made headlines in 1999 after RCMP busted a network of grow-ops that Crown counsel said was the largest B.C. network it had ever seen. After serving two years in prison, he started Da Kine on Commercial Drive, which was soon raided for selling pot over the counter. While in prison on trafficking charges related to that raid, Briere became the first federal prisoner to run for a seat in a B.C. election.

Briere said he doesn’t think the public would stomach another $1.5 million trial to put him behind bars for selling marijuana.

In 2012, he founded and then sold the Vancouver Pain Management Society dispensary, where the Sun reporter was able to become a member after a 30-minute meeting with an in-house psychologist. About a year ago, he started the Weeds chain. Now Briere said he owns half of each franchise, which can cost at least $50,000 to open once he and the franchisee pay for glass display cases, cannabis products and paraphernalia and the four months’ rent some landlords demand.