Toronto police raid Compassion Centre serving 1,200 patients
Toronto police raided the Toronto Compassion Centre at Bathurst and St Clair on 13 August 2002, seizing medicine for about 1,200 patients and arresting staff; the club's two founders were charged with possession and trafficking and the charges were later dropped.
🇨🇦 Bathurst and St Clair, Toronto, Ontario · Ontario, Canada
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Charged
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Toronto drug officers from 13 and 53 Divisions battered down the door of the Toronto Compassion Centre at Bathurst and St Clair on 13 August, with their guns pointed.[1]The club had supplied medical marijuana for five years to about 1,200 people living with AIDS, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis and other conditions.[1][2]Police seized the medicine for those patients and hauled the staff off to jail, according to an urgent alert the centre issued on 14 August.[2]
In a busy week the club’s operators spoke to between 500 and 600 patients, while Health Canada had granted only 806 people country-wide status at the time.[1]Members received detailed analyses of strains from a message board rating sativa and indica content, information the writer called vital for daily health logs.[1]
The club’s two founders, Zack Noftolin and Warren Hitzig, were charged with possession and trafficking after the August 2002 raid.[3]The charges were later dropped.[3]
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