After three years of legally fighting to grow weed plants at home, TobaGrown which is spearheaded by Jesse Lavoie, has presented the final arguments against the conservative provincial government’s ban on Manitobans growing cannabis.
Under the federal Cannabis Act, Canadians are legally allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants per residence, but Manitoba and Quebec banned it following legalization in 2018. Currently, if Manitobans are caught growing weed they can get fined $2,500.
To change this, Lavoie filed a constitutional challenge in August 2020 with the assistance of legal firm Chornopyski Law.
In September last year, the firm said it joined a similar challenge in Quebec.
“We are confident that the court will understand that Manitoba’s prohibition is actually criminal law in nature because it allows for significant penalties such as imprisonment for up to one year, whereas Quebec’s law imposes only a very small fine,” said Kirk Tousaw, one of TobaGrown’s lawyers, in a statement on Thursday.
The non-profit is organizing a rally at the Manitoba Legislative Building on Friday before the court appearance at 10 am-12 pm.
Headed to Manitoba with @JackLloydLawyer to make further arguments in the @TobaGrown case. Our view is that Manitobans deserve the right to grow their four plants and that the MB law punishing doing so by up to a year in jail is unconstitutional! #LetMBGrow pic.twitter.com/O3wdAsdAjI
— KirkTousaw (@KirkTousaw) September 7, 2023
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In February last year, TobaGrown launched not-for-profit cannabis products such as prerolls and flower to help fund the ongoing legal challenge against the government. One was a pack of three 0.5-gram pre-rolled joints under the name TobaRolls, using dried flower sourced from an anonymous licensed producer in British Columbia.
The second was the TobaSquad pre-rolls and its flower was sourced from several Manitoban producers including Alicanto Gardens, Cypress Craft, Grump Weed, Kief Cannabis, Natural Earth Craft Cannabis, Prairie Trichomes and Rogue Botanicals.
@JackLloydLawyer and @KirkTousaw are back in court in Manitoba fighting for our 4 cannabis plants and for TobaGrown#lawsuit #manitoba #cannabis pic.twitter.com/1Jae1AHeAX
— TobaGrown (@TobaGrown) August 15, 2023
Other than paying for legal fees, the proceeds were donated to multiple local and national charities.
Charities that received the remaining funds included Winnipeg Harvest, True North Aid, Manitoba Metis Heritage Fund, Habitat for Humanity Manitoba and Seth Rogan’s Hilarity for Charity.
“This law was unconstitutional when it was drafted, and it is unconstitutional now given the significant differences between the law as written in Quebec and the law as written in Manitoba, ” said Jack Lloyd, one of TobaGrown’s lawyers.
“It is clear the Murray-Hall (Quebec) decision does not bind the Manitoba courts given the significant differences between the two laws.”
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