Delivery weed-on-demand services continue to flourish, and one defense lawyer says it is due, in part, to the issues and delays with Ontario’s legal online cannabis store. Adrian Ghobrial with what the latest data shows about the black market.

Watch – Proliferation of weed delivery services highlights issues with legal cannabis store

I’m having a spirited discussion on our Facebook page about this very issue. People think buying their weed online is safe for both the seller and buyer — it’s untrue and it’s illegal.

I live in Toronto and the vast majorities of illegal (retail) dispensaries have already been shut down. I would have never thought this was possible even a year ago as they were on every corner downtown.

It’s only a matter of time before websites that sell weed online are targeted next. It’s largely been ignored for years, but with cannabis now legal in Canada and with so much tax revenue at stake – These black markets will be on the radar for police sooner than later.

But the weed online is much cheaper and better quality.. Government weed is shitty!

True. But. We will see hundreds of additional licensed producers over the next couple of years. Shortage issues will go away, there will be more choices and the quality will improve or those same legal growers will go out of business. Competition is good. You don’t need to look further than Oregon or California to see that the prices of marijuana have gone down drastically now that it’s legal. An increased retail presence across all provinces means easier access and will ultimately have consumers choosing legal options to buy their weed.

Is this a local police, provincial or federal issue?

It’s all of the above and part of the problem. Since online websites that sell weed don’t have a physical presence and exist exclusively in cyberspace, then it becomes an issue that will require cooperation with everyone involved. This won’t be solved until the Federal government passes new laws to go after black market websites that sell marijuana illegally online.

Canada Post doesn’t seem to care. My package won’t be searched unless you can smell weed or it’s obvious that the package in question may contain illegal materials.

That’s unfortunately been largely true for many years. It’s not that Canada Post doesn’t care, they need search warrants and getting legal authorities involved to identify and intercept questionable packages. It’s a volume and resource issue made more complicated as illegal weed purchases are typically sealed in air-tight packaging to avoid detection. Canada Post will ultimately play a smaller role in solving the black market issue of selling weed illegally online. Purchases will be made to track all parties involved and then Canada Post will do their part by providing video footage when a package is shipped to forwarding physical evidence when arrests are made.

I’m buying my weed online and won’t get caught (Buyers and Sellers).

Wrong. EVERYTHING you do online has a digital footprint!

Payment

Illegal online weed dispensaries sell product via direct bank transfer and e-transfers to avoid a payment trail for the transaction. With the right legal assistance from the police, these payments can be easily tracked

You can’t find me!

I used to work for an ISP. Everyone has a physical IP every time you surf anywhere and we were asked for the identities of people all the time. The police WILL find out who you are

Seller – Try to shutdown my website! I’ll just start another one

Every web host will comply to provide details about their customers who are conducting illegal activities, no matter where your website is hosted from

Seller – My domain details are private, my website host leaves no trace back to me

Don’t be foolish.. All of this information again can be easily found by police with help from the courts when those companies are asked to comply with requests to track your details

But.. There are lots of websites selling weed online illegally for years. It’s because they can’t be caught right?

As it stands now, there’s little being done to take them down… but this will change with again so much lost tax revenue now at risk. Money talks, death and taxes right..

Solution: Raise the risk to buy and sell weed illegally online:

Pass stricter laws to target illegal weed dispensaries and help attack the black market

– maximize jail terms

– impose massive fines to illegal website operators

– establish cooperation at every level of government, police and the court system with resourced task forces to go after and go after these websites and the people buying from them.

It might be relatively safe today, but then again all of those people who ran illegal dispensaries thought it was safe too… Now they are gone.

My ultimate suggestion to you. Grow your own and don’t take the risk!