Pubdate: Wed, 01 Mar 2017 Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2017 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329 Author: Jacquie Miller Page: 4 'ESCOBARS OF MARIJUANA' In trouble for selling weed Nova Coates recognized the armed man in the black balaclava as soon as he burst into her Bank Street store. The clerk had served him as one of her "patients" at the Weeds Glass & Gifts marijuana dispensary. "I said to the cop, 'I recognize you.'" The undercover Ottawa police officer and other squad members raided Weeds that afternoon in January, hauling away bags of dried weed, cannabis oils, cookies, candies and concentrates. Coates and the other clerk behind the counter, Cassandra Morrison, were arrested. The handcuffs were pink, Coates recalls. "I was like, 'Wow, did you know there were two women working here?'"(Coates correctly speculated that the pink cuffs were part of a police campaign to support a breast cancer charity.) "They were very nice, very polite," Coates says. Customers in the shop were released. Coates and Morrison were taken to Ottawa police headquarters, where they spent about 12 hours in adjoining cells before being released with a promise to appear in court. Coates pulls out a sheet of paper that lists the charges against her: 19 counts related to drug trafficking and possessing the proceeds of crime. "And I only worked there for two weeks," she says ruefully. The arrest rattled her so badly that Coates didn't leave her house for weeks. She said she resigned herself to losing some friends who would not agree with her choice to work at an illegal marijuana dispensary, and embarrassing some family members. "I felt humiliated." But a month later, both Coates and Morrison are back behind the counter at Weeds. The store reopened last week. "The Pablo Escobars of marijuana. That's what they call us," Coates says, who jokes to mask her anxiety. The pair are among 19 "budtenders" who have been arrested at Ottawa pot shops in raids over the past four months. Both consider themselves compassionate people helping patients get their medicine. But as far as the law is concerned, the only difference between Coates, Morrison and a drug dealer on a street corner is where they conduct business. Coates knew the risks. But she said she thought Weeds might not be raided because, unlike some other dispensaries, it only sells to medical marijuana users. (Medical marijuana is legal, but only when sold by growers licensed by Health Canada, who send it by mail.) "I came back to work, because I'm already in this deep," she explains, throwing up her hands. "I'm not going to run away." Her story helps explain how Coates, "a normal mom, not a criminal," in her own words, ended up at Weeds. Coates worked for a men's clothing store chain in Winnipeg and then Ottawa, a job she loved. She has suited up members of Parliament, business leaders and grooms, Coates says proudly. That crashed four years ago when she fell off a ladder at the store, fracturing her back. She was catapulted into a world of excruciating pain and became dependent on painkillers. Her doctor prescribed OxyContin and Percocet, with some Valium on the side because "He told me I'd be depressed from taking all these (pain) pills, and not being able to walk around. I went with it because I was crawling to the bathroom." Soon, she felt like an addict. "I was getting sick, I was getting skinny. I was in a dangerous zombie zone." When Coates asked her Winnipeg doctor about medical marijuana, he dismissed the idea, so she began experimenting on her own with weed she bought from friends and colleagues. She found herself relying more on cannabis and less on opioids to manage her pain. When she moved to Ottawa three years ago, Coates was so desperate she found a dealer near a homeless shelter downtown to sell her weed. "I didn't know where to go." As soon as the Weeds dispensary opened about a year ago, Coates started shopping there. Her Ottawa doctor helped wean her off painkillers and suggested everything from physiotherapy to massage, but also would not prescribe marijuana. Morrison, whose doctor also refused to prescribe her marijuana, takes it to help her insomnia. "Without it, I can't sleep at night," she says, her voice breaking. "I can stay up Shops have been raided by police for three days, going crazy." Morrison, 26, is still shaken up from her experience in the cell, which she says was "pretty bad" because she didn't have her prescription anti-anxiety medication with her. She proudly calls herself a cannabis activist, and dreams of opening her own shop. "I love it. I would not trade this job for the world." There's no bigger supporter than Morrison's mother, Sherry, who uses medical marijuana to cope with chronic pain. Sherry Morrison is organizing a rally at the Ottawa courthouse at 9 a.m. on Wednesday to support her daughter and other budtenders and to call for police to stop raiding the shops. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt