One of Canada’s best-known weed activists has a new business venture.
Jodie’s Joint, named after Jodie Emery, is opening today in the Kensington Market area of Toronto.
It’s not a dispensary.
‘For many years I’ve dreamed about a hemp-themed cannabis cafe that would combine my love of cannabis, hemp and coffee,’ Emery wrote on the business’s Facebook page. ‘When federal legalization was introduced, I planned to make that dream a reality.
‘At this time, I’m sad to say the restrictive prohibitions at every level of government make an Amsterdam-style cannabis retail model impossible—but as with all excessive and unnecessary regulations, we simply need to engage in continued activism and lobbying to improve the rules,’ she continued. ‘The good news is that coffee is still legal, as are hemp materials and food items, so I can combine those two elements for now and continue my activism work to introduce the third!’
It’s located where Casa Coffee operated for decades.
Last December, she and her husband, Marc Emery, pleaded guilty and were fined $195,000 each in a plea deal with the Crown.
It involved a raft of charges in connection with their Cannabis Culture company, which had 19 shops in three provinces.
As part of the arrangement, charges were dropped against 17 Cannabis Culture employees.
Jodie’s Joint has opened in the city where their legal troubles began.
Toronto police arrested them at the airport and ordered that search warrants be executed in Toronto, the Hamilton area, and Vancouver as part of Project Gator, which targeted cannabis dispensaries.
It came after Marc Emery had written articles critical of former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, who was appointed by Justin Trudeau to oversee cannabis legalization.
In one article, Marc Emery referred to Blair, now a Liberal MP and cabinet minister, as ‘Bill the Narc’.
