Ottawa Police conducted a raid Thursday morning at the Cannabis Culture marijuana dispensary on Bank Street.

About a half dozen police officers were seen in the store when the raid began at about 11 a.m.

The Ottawa store is owned by the so called 'Prince of Pot' Marc Emery. The Ottawa raid comes just hours after Marc and his wife Jodie were arrested in Toronto.

TORONTO -- Prominent marijuana activists Marc and Jodie Emery were charged with multiple drug-related offences in Toronto on Thursday after police in several cities raided pot dispensaries associated with the couple.

Although some of the latest comments from the Trump Administration seem to indicate that a federal crackdown is on the horizon with respect to the recreational marijuana industry, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently suggested that such action is simply “not possible.”

In an interview with national talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Sessions said that while the Department of Justice will “enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide,” he admits that Uncle Sam just doesn’t have the necessary resources to close the doors on the legal cannabis community – at least not entirely.

The Colorado Legislature is loaded up with marijuana measures this week, including proposals to establish pot clubs and to add PTSD to the list of patient ailments that can be treated with medical marijuana. And on March 8, the Senate Business, Labor and Technology committee approved Senator Tim Neville's bill to allow medical marijuana delivery systems for patients and businesses.

Senate Bill 17-192 calls for a state licensing authority to create an endorsement for existing medical marijuana licenses, permitting them to make deliveries to patients in need in areas where medical marijuana is currently sold.

Even as the Colorado General Assembly is considering ways to reduce the movement of marijuana to the gray market, lawmakers are in a bit of a liberalizing mood this session. A bill to allow social consumption clubs passed the Senate, and they’re considering another bill that would allow home delivery of marijuana.

Gov. John Hickenlooper said this year might not be the best time to do that.

The largest association of medical-marijuana companies in Canada has agreed to implement new standards on product safety and transparency, after a series of recalls due to banned pesticides that have shaken consumer confidence in the industry.

Directors of the Cannabis Canada Association, which represents 15 federally licensed medical-marijuana companies – including several of the country’s biggest – voted unanimously in favour of the new health and safety standards at a board meeting Thursday.

The stricter measures include independent lab testing for banned pesticides, bacteria, mould, heavy metals and other contaminants, and – most importantly – disclosing those results to consumers.

A judge in New Jersey ruled that a man’s insurance company must pay for the cost of his medical cannabis treatment. This may establish an important precedent in the medical industry.

Andrew Watson, who lives in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, enrolled in the state’s medical cannabis program in 2014. He sought financial reimbursement for the purchase of medicinal cannabis over a term of three months.

Anyone who owns and operates a pot business in Oakland will have to live in the city, Oakland’s lawmakers have decided.

That’s bad news for established businesses like Dark Heart Nursery, run by a San Leandro resident who’s worked in the city for more than a decade and whose family has lived in Oakland for three generations.

“We’re sitting here with millions of dollars of investments, millions paid in taxes to the city and 60 local employees. And we’re going to have to shutter our doors,” said Dan Grace, who runs the East Oakland nursery.

Bill Blair, the former police chief of Toronto, slides into his restaurant chair and twinkles at the waitress. He’s 6ft 6in, white-haired now but perky. Bill has 120 years of policing behind him. He, his father and his grandfather all served 40 years in the force. Now he’s an MP and he’s legalising cannabis in Canada.

The restaurant has been here since early in Bill’s father’s time on the beat. It claims to have invented the bacon cheeseburger. We sit round a plastic-topped table and Bill tells me how he ended up pushing drug reform.

“I see a line in the Washington Post today that I remember from the ‘80s: ‘Marijuana is a cure for opiate abuse,’” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently. ”’Give me a break. This is the kind of argument that’s been made out there to just … [it’s] almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana or even its benefits. I doubt that’s true.’”