While some Indigenous dispensary owners have had their accounts closed for years, there seems to have been a recent uptick in financial actions taken against Indigenous entrepreneurs, almost to the point of an economic embargo. Many of these actions have taken place against individuals living in territories where Band Councils have passed by-laws acknowledging the sovereign right of their residents to cultivate and sell cannabis and where referendums and surveys have shown community support for the cannabis industry.
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A spate of four dramatic robberies of ATM machines from Six Nations businesses underlines the risks facing Indigenous entrepreneurs who’ve been banned from using Canadian banks.
Audio recording reveals OPP Detectives told the Hwy 17 Dispensary and Trading Post that they would only raid if “the township does not permit it.” By Dispensing Freedom staff MASSEY – On Aug 17th, 2023, the sovereign Highway 17 Dispensary and Trading post was opened at 195 Sauble St. in…
To the media and the people of the Township of Sables-Spanish Rivers. The Hwy 17 Trading Post and Dispensary at 195 Sauble Street in Massey, Ontario represents a deliberate exercising of sovereign Anishinaabe rights on our lands. These inherent Aboriginal and treaty rights are constitutionally protected, though they have long…
Over forty people came out to hear former National Chief Del Riley speak at the grand opening of the Highway 17 Dispensary and Trading Post in Massey on August 17th, 2023. The trading post is the latest sovereign cannabis dispensary to open up off-reserve as Indigenous entrepreneurs move beyond the Indian Act and assert Aboriginal and treaty rights to their traditional territory.
A sovereign Indigenous cannabis store operating in downtown Brantford, Ontario was robbed on Tuesday Sept 12th by the Brantford Police department. Sovern 4/20, which opened the day before the raid occurred, is located at 14 Dalhousie Street on lands deeded by the Crown to the “Mohawks and such others of the Six Nations” by the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784.
By Dispensing Freedom Staff SIX NATIONS – Dispensing Freedom has received an audio recording of a customer buying psychedelic mushrooms at a Six Nations cannabis store regulated by the Six Nations Cannabis Commission. In an audio recording made on the premises of the store in July of 2023, an employee…
KITIGAN-ZIBI – From June 9th to July 15th, 2023 a grassroots committee of Kitigan Zibi residents conducted a community survey to learn more about their people’s attitudes to cannabis. 114 people responded to the survey and they overwhelmingly came out in support of a sovereign and medicinal approach to cannabis…
Since 2022 a growing number of Indigenous trading posts and cannabis shops have opened up on traditional Indigenous territories off-reserve. Anishinaabe, Algonquin, Chippewa, Mohawk, Mississauga, Mi’kmaq, and Oneida entrepreneurs have all opened up shops off reserve on their traditional territory. At 4pm on Sunday, July 9th, 2023 join us for…
“It is safe and we are taking into account the neighbours,” Jackson said. “Respecting our neighbours and (not) having people hanging around is something we take seriously. We can’t be serving people cannabis and then they get in their car and they drive away after smoking on the premises. And we have no qualms about having a dialogue with anyone in the community. We’re open to that.