Marijuana activist Lucier receives a $ 4,000 fine

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A Windsor marijuana activist reacted with relief when a judge slapped him with a $ 4,000 fine on Friday, ending a lengthy legal ordeal after police raided his Compassion House business three years ago.

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“I am happy, this brings closure. The judge was quite fair, ”Leo Lucier told the Star after Ontario court judge Mark Hornblower delivered his verdict on the sentence.

The Crown asked the judge to fine him $ 20,000, but Lucier said part of the reason for the time it took for the case to conclude was the prosecution’s initial insistence that he be jailed for operating an illegal cannabis retail store. .

Lucier and a group of Compassion House employees were the first in Windsor to be charged under the Cannabis Act, a new federal law enacted on October 17, 2018, when Canada legalized marijuana for recreational use by adults. Undercover officers from the Windsor Police Service soon attended Compassion House, which was openly operating out of a Windsor storefront on Tecumseh Road west of Ouellette Avenue, and two raids followed on November 2 and 5.

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In his ruling, Hornblower said that some consumers at the time felt that the implementation of new regulations to regulate the production and sale of cannabis was “slow, flawed and confusing. In the midst of that confusion came Mr. Lucier and Compassion House. “

The judge took into consideration mitigating factors such as Lucier’s community involvement, including the use of his business to raise funds and goods for the less fortunate, but emphasized that both that and the “perceived flaws” in the way the laws were being implemented. New Canadian cannabis regulations were “irrelevant” to the court case. Hornblower said Lucier’s Compassion House operation “was at all times illegal.”

Lucier, 51, pleaded guilty to the Cannabis Act charge in August, after which the Crown asked the judge to drop all charges against the co-defendants. Hornblower accepted that request on Friday.

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The judge questioned the need for the police to carry out a sting operation given that Compassion House was doing business openly. He also disagreed with the prosecution’s argument that employees were at risk given the illicit nature of the Compassion House business. While his operation “was clearly illegal,” he said it was not carried out in secret, but through a “highly visible” showcase location.

Lucier, who had a cannabis-related criminal record that the judge described as “outdated,” also received a life suspension for not possessing firearms or other weapons.

The judge agreed to a forfeiture order for more than $ 39,000 in cash and cannabis products seized by police in the Compassion House raids. But it also ruled separately for the return of $ 3,073.10 in cash, which the defense had argued was the proceeds, contained in an envelope, from a fundraising effort intended to cover the costs of the funeral of a Compassion House volunteer who had been murdered by his brother in 2018.

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Defense attorney Elizabeth Craig said money will now be sent to the family of the deceased.

“We felt that the judge gave a very, very well reasoned decision, it was a great sentence,” Craig told the Star.

The $ 4,000 fine, he said, was $ 1,000 less than what the defense had previously offered the Crown for a guilty plea and to avoid court time. “They wanted jail,” he said.

Lucier, a longtime marijuana activist, said he is disappointed that cannabis cannot be used “as a tool to end hunger.” He does not expect to “withdraw” from marijuana activism, but said that now “it will remain within the parameters of the law.”

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