According to an Ontario police chief, there is reason to fear for delivery truck drivers leaving Canada’s medicinal marijuana grow facilities.
Twelve companies have been licensed to sell marijuana in Canada, and around 40,000 Canadians are authorized to use and grow the drug for medicinal purposes. This was done in preparation for the regulation change scheduled for April 1st – which would make growing pot illegal at home, forcing patients to obtain prescriptions from government-approved growers.
With these shifts in policy, and the extra attention that has been drawn to the marijuana industry – concerns about safety are rising amongst police and emergency responders who have already received a dozen theft notifications.
According to Durham Regional Police Chief, Mike Ewles. “There are certainly certain specifications with regards to the buildings and the locations in which they can grow the medical marijuana, but I think the weakest link in the armor here is the actual distribution after it is produced.”
Marijuana is required to be shipped in unmarked, sealed containers – preventing the escape of odors (which could draw attention to the product). Although disguising the drug is helpful – it wouldn’t take much for a potential thief to surgery the area, and wait for a truck to pull out of the facility. Hijacking of currier trucks is a very real issue, and according to Ewles, “…that’s putting the driver at risk and our community at risk.”
Although there is a 150 gram limit per person on marijuana prescriptions, there are a large number of prescriptions on each truck. Ewles pointed out that, “…they are going to take out hundreds or thousands of packages at a time in a truck. I mean a cargo theft, you know could certainly happen, a takeover could happen in our community because there is still a criminal market for this product and now we’re going to be providing it in individual weighed out packages.”
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