A woman from Rothesay has posted an open letter to the Saint John police chief about the medical marijuana dispensary raids this week which resulted in the arrests of a dozen people who are facing drug charges.
While Jaymee Splude isn’t a user of these dispensaries herself, the health effects of marijuana is something she’s witnessed first-hand. In her letter addressed to Chief John Bates, she describes how eight years ago her father-in-law had been given only months to live and that he tried a marijuana infused oil in his feeding tube at the urging of his doctor.
“It was embarassing for me to say that it was marijuana, but you can’t refute the evidence. I saw it with my own eyes,” Splude told us in an interview. “This man was given two more years, which is a beautiful gift, because of what he was putting in his feeding tube.
So it crossed me over to the other side…and allowed me to be vocal about it in situations such as this.”
The letter talks about how these shops are helping the ill have a better quality of life. Splude says she felt she had to plead with the chief so that he can understand the devastation she believes that he’s created in his community — she says he’s actually interrupted the doctor-prescribed health plans of thousands of community members. Here what she’s hoping Chief Bates will take away from his letter:
“If these shops do re-open there’s other steps you can take, there’s other things that you can do to ensure that these places aren’t selling to children they aren’t selling to non-prescriped members, they’re not just free-for-all-ing the public with a bunch of weed,” Splude said. “They’re selling to people that need it in order to keep a good quality of life and maintain a healthy perspective.”
Splude says she has received a staggering amount of messages since posting the open letter from people who are terrified they are because of their reliance on dispensaries like this, including from an unnamed prominent member of the community.
“Improving the quality of life of is heroic on these store owners’ parts — not criminal.”
Chief John Bates released this statement on the day of the marijuana shop raids:
Saint John’s police chief has released a statement on the raids at six marijuana dispensaries in the city #sjnews. pic.twitter.com/1Q8BtfRBbk
— Laura Lyall (@LauraLyall) January 24, 2017
