In a Nova Scotia first, a judge has sentenced a Mi’kmaw man to three months of house arrest for running a roadside cannabis dispensary that operated among many other pot peddling outfits in a First Nations community.
Darren Charles Marshall argued unsuccessfully that in running an operation called The Flower Barn in Millbrook First Nation, “he was exercising a treaty or aboriginal right to traffic in cannabis,” according to Associate Chief Judge Ronda van der Hoek, who sentenced him recently in Truro provincial court.
“There was no foundation to support such a conclusion, and the court dismissed the application before it even got off the ground,” the judge said. “It is worth noting that a belief in a right is quite different from an understanding based on a considered analysis of a situation. Our society is democratically organized around laws and determining that a law does not accord with one’s preference does not entitle one to breach it.”
The judge noted a “proliferation of illegal cannabis trafficking operations across the province on First Nations’ lands and the RCMP are actively engaged in shutting them down. This, it was argued, is the first sentencing decision to be delivered in such a matter. The Crown characterizes marijuana trafficking as serious and Mr. Marshall’s degree of responsibility as high. The court agrees with those characterizations.”
Article from National Post
