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About two dozen people were in line when the store opened around 1 p.m.

Customer Roxanne Cibien said she discovered the benefits of cannabis for her son, a brain cancer survivor who uses it to control headaches. Now she also uses cannabis-infused cream on her face and drops a cannabis oil capsule into her coffee or tea at night to help her sleep.

“I really believe in it,” said Cibien, who hopes to buy a Cannabis Culture franchise. “I’m not into the recreational. I’m more into the medical.”

Cibien says she doesn’t care if the dispensaries are illegal. “I’m ready to go to jail for this.”

So is Jodie Emery, who urged a dozen protesters on Parliament Hill earlier Wednesday to keep fighting for what she calls their “civil right” to use cannabis, “spiritually, medically or recreationally.”

“We’re sick and tired of living in fear!” she yelled as supporters chanted “Stop arresting our people” and “Marijuana doesn’t kill.”

Photo by Tony Caldwell / Postmedia Network

The federal government has promised to introduce legislation this spring to legalize recreational marijuana.

Emery said she’s concerned government regulations will be too restrictive, and shut out both dispensaries like Cannabis Culture and small growers in favour of the large producers now licensed by Health Canada to grow and sell medical marijuana.

She also urged the government to immediately stop prosecuting people for possession of marijuana. Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record, lose their jobs or their right to the travel to the U.S. for smoking pot, she said, comparing drug laws to the Prohibition era when alcohol was outlawed.