Jodie Emery fought the law and the law won.

At least, that’s the short version of how things went down when Emery and her husband Marc tried to open five illegal marijuana dispensaries in Montreal last December.

Hours after the dispensaries’ carnival-like grand opening, the Emerys were in handcuffs and police shut down all of their storefronts. Though Emery had escaped the initial crackdown, undercover officers caught up to her at a downtown hotel.

“I was getting to my room when these guys in plain clothes ran over and said, ‘Hey, Jodie, can we get a photo?’” Emery said. “I expected one of them to pull out a cellphone but he pulled out a pair of handcuffs instead.”

As someone who has battled against Canada’s marijuana laws for years, it might seem only logical that Emery would embrace the Liberal government’s legislation to legalize recreation weed by summer 2018. But Emery is skeptical.

“The whole legalization process is being guided by (former Toronto police chief) Bill Blair, a man who fought against marijuana for years,” she said. “You’re putting the fox in charge of the hen house.”

Case in point, Emery says, are provisions in the bill that mandate 14-year prison sentence to those convicted of selling marijuana to minors. Selling tobacco or alcohol to minors, in comparison, is punishable by a fine for first-time offenders.

Marc-Boris St-Maurice, who runs the Fondation Marijuana dispensary on St-Laurent Blvd., also finds the legislation problematic.

“They’re creating a whole new category of criminals in the process of legalizing weed,” said St-Maurice, who has advocated for legalization since he founded the Bloc Pot provincial political party in 1998 and Marijuana Party federally in 2000. “For example, a 19-year-old passes a joint to a 17-year-old, is that a 14-year jail sentence you could be facing? The law doesn’t just say selling to minors is illegal. Giving is also included.

“If you have over 30 grams (of marijuana) on you when you’re out and about, that’s a two-year sentence. This is a huge problem.”

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould defended the penalties last week in Ottawa, telling reporters they were necessary to keep marijuana out of the hands of children. But both Emery and St-Maurice — who have a track record of fighting marijuana prohibition in the courts — question whether the penalties would survive a constitutional challenge.

The other major stumbling block for St-Maurice will be distribution. The proposed law, called Bill C-45, gives provinces the mandate to determine how and where marijuana will be sold.

Last week, the union representing 5,500 employees of the Société des alcohols du Québec implored the provincial government to take control of the cannabis trade. Only a state operation “whose social and financial objectives are defined by the government” is in a position to “ensure the strictest respect for government standards and the framework,” said Alexandre Joly, president of the Syndicat des employés de magasins et de bureaux de la SAQ.

“If the government decides to set up their own state-run SAQ sort of place, I don’t think customers will be particularly well-served,” said St-Maurice. “If Quebec puts up something too restrictive and hard to manage, people are just going to keep going to the black market.

“Even though, right now, there’s a black market and it’s illegal, it caters to people’s needs. There’s home delivery, you get a selection of what there is. You see variety.”

One advocate says there’s a possible way around the headaches that come with legislating marijuana distribution in 13 provinces and territories. Under the system Health Canada put in place for medical cannabis, patients mail-order their product from one of 43 federally-licensed producers.

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“While this jurisdictional argument happens, there will also be a mail-order system that’s preserved as well. That bypasses local jurisdictions,” said Adam Greenblatt, who works for the Tweed brand of medical cannabis. “The feds don’t have to worry about 13 different provinces and territories making their own system. Everyone in Canada gets mail.”

In anticipation of a vast legal market, Canada’s largest medical marijuana producers are ramping up production and building millions of square feet in new greenhouses. Bill C-45 puts companies like Canopy Growth — whose product is tested and regulated by Health Canada — in a position to dominate the multi-billion-dollar trade.

But Emery says she doubts the licensed producers have the infrastructure to feed a market that could be “10 times bigger” than the medical space. And with new, harsher penalties in place for selling the drug, she says the bill is essentially prohibition by another name.

St-Maurice — who founded his dispensary in 1999 to supply medical marijuana patients — says it’s possible Bill C-45 will put him out of business. The irony is that it was through his own arrest for drug trafficking and subsequent court victories that helped pave the way for legal access to medical cannabis.

“We’ve done this for 20 years and we want to be included in the (legal) process,” he says. “Will they put us out of business? I would hope they’d try to keep us involved. We could also try to thumb our noses and challenge in court. If we do have to, we’re prepared to fight for our rights in court.”

Andy Riga of the Montreal Gazette contributed to this report.

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A B.C. Supreme court judge ruled Tuesday that municipalities have the right to regulate marijuana dispensaries and cities have the right to deny them business licences and implement bylaws banning the sale of pot.

The case centred on Mary Jane’s Glass and Gifts in Abbotsford, one of the many dispensaries operated by Don Briere.

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The City of Abbotsford moved to shut it down, but Briere’s lawyer tried to challenge that, arguing the city was violating the Constitution by restricting access to medical marijuana.

He also argued the city was stepping out of its jurisdiction because pot is a substance controlled by the federal government.

The judge found that even though pot is regulated federally, it doesn’t mean a lower authority can’t regulate it.

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In addition, she found federal laws don’t guarantee access to medical marijuana through dispensaries.

The decision comes amid confusion over who regulates dispensaries.

Cities like Vancouver have moved to license a small number of pot shops but others have moved to shut them down.

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For instance, in Langford two people were arrested following a Wednesday raid at a pot shop that had already been shuttered once.

Green Tree Medical Dispensary is facing a civil suit from the city compelling it to permanently cease operations.

With files from Farrah Merali

Hamilton police have charged the owner of a medical marijuana dispensary on Ottawa Street North and seized about $100,000 of inventory.

The vice and drug unit used a search warrant to enter MMJ Canada, a dispensary at 146 Ottawa Street North, around 1 p.m. on Tuesday.

“The operator of this dispensary was committing the criminal acts of possession for the purpose of trafficking marijuana and THC because they were selling or giving away marihuana or marihuana derivatives from their location,” police say.

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The inventory seized included marijuana and marijuana-derivative products, including edible THC-based products.

The owner, a 28-year-old man from Quebec residing in Hamilton, was charged on multiple drug-related counts. He was released on a promise to appear in court at a future date to answer to the charges.

The federal government has committed to legalizing marijuana, but until that happens, police say, they will follow the law and charge people who sell marijuana.

As for the dispensaries, Clint Younge, CEO of MMJ Canada, said in the fall that he hired a lawyer to fight charges related to the raid on his Hess Village dispensary. Younge maintained that prosecuting him was a waste of resources.

“Why there’s such an aggressive approach in Ontario, I do not understand,” he told CBC Hamilton.

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Several dispensaries in the city have been raided in recent months. In a Facebook post Tuesday, Pacifico dispensary on James St. North said its landlord had received a bylaw violation notice from the city.

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“These notices came in the form of a ‘Cease & Desist Order’ which by definition means to stop and not continue or else face impending judicial enforcement,” the post reads.

Licensing director Ken Leendertse told CBC News that all known dispensaries and the property owners received the notices that the dispensaries are operating in a space that isn’t zoned to sell pot.

He said upon conviction, the maximum fine for a person is $25,000, while a corporation would face a $50,000 fine. If the business didn’t comply, they would face subsequent fines of $10,000 a day for a person, or $25,000 a day for a corporation.

The Liberal government has said it is preparing to introduce legislation to “legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana” before this summer.

Four teenage boys are among six people charged in a string of armed robberies that targeted illegal marijuana dispensaries across Toronto.

Toronto police say one suspect remains at large after four dispensaries, and a convenience store, were robbed between March 17 and April 7.

In the dispensary robberies, police say masked suspects armed with handguns “took physical control of the employees” before stealing marijuana and cash.

The dispensaries targeted were at 1605 Dundas St. W., 350 Broadview Ave., 1363 Dundas St. W., and 33 Spadina Ave.

On Wednesday March 15, two of the suspects now facing charges, and a third unidentified male, allegedly robbed a convenience store in the Rexdale Boulevard and Islington Avenue area.

Police say they tackled the store clerk before making off with cash and lottery tickets.

Two adults, Nejahwan Grant, 20, and Kayla Couto, 24, both of Mississauga and four teenage boys between the ages of 15 and 17, were arrested last Thursday.

They face a slew of robbery and weapons charges.

In a release, police said some of the dispensary robberies were not reported to police.

“Furthermore, some owners and victims were unwilling to cooperate with the investigation,” police added.

Last week the federal government tabled legislation to legalize recreational marijuana, but the sale of marijuana outside of the current medical framework through mail order remains illegal and police say they will continue to enforce the law.