“I played ice hockey for Canterbury from the age of 15 until the age of 28 and accumulated several small injuries. The most serious was an MCL tear which leads to several knee dislocations between 2010-2015 as I was still playing. Cannabis helped me immensely in my recovery and mental well-being while dealing with the same injury over and over again. Although management knew of my cannabis consumption throughout my time playing ice hockey, they did not approve of it at all but would gladly down 12-15 beers at one time.

The mindset of comparing a joint, or a puff, to having a casual beer or wine is still very far away in New Zealand, but, from what I have seen in Canada, there is certainly hope for a shift within the cannabis culture and the mindset of many Kiwis.

I moved to Toronto from Christchurch in early 2016. What really pushed me into moving over to Canada was the fact that there were ‘grey market’ dispensaries operating within the cities of this great country. These stores would fulfil the government mandate for medicinal cannabis, however, they fell outside of the laws in the province of Ontario.

I worked for a couple of years in different dispensaries, selling cannabis to every single type of person you could possibly imagine. As mentioned, these dispensaries fell outside the law of Ontario and the police began raiding and shutting down many of the 150+ dispensaries across the city. Unfortunately, I was caught up in two of these police raids, arrested, and subsequently faced major drug trafficking charges, compounded by the fact we had several kilograms of cannabis, cannabis extracts (hash/shatter), and cannabis edibles which are all considered separate charges.

All charges were eventually dropped due to a peace bond between the Crown and myself. The peace bond recently expired this year.

After that hiccup, I moved into cannabis-based content creation and started my own website in early 2019. Six months later I sold this website to a cannabis company and advised them for several months. I started my current project (Cannabis Information Institute) in late 2019 and it has been going great so far. We collaborate with cannabis educators and influencers across the world to bring consumers top-notch, informative content.

Cannabis has certainly lead me down an interesting path in the last 10 years and the amazing opportunities that are available for New Zealand (once legalised) cannot be understated.

VOTE YES on the Cannabis Referendum in October!”

Justin.