A second budtender arrested while working at a Green Tree dispensary has gone public with claims owners have abandoned him.
Only weeks after Vancouver Island resident Cale Ralston contacted CLN claiming local managers were not returning his calls after being charged with trafficking on his second day working at a since-closed dispensary in Langford, an Ottawa man is telling a similar tale of woe.
Shawn McAlesse, who worked at both WeeMedical and a Green Tree shops, told Postmedia reporter Jacqui Miller he’s been ghosted by the B.C.-based dispensary chain after his November arrest along with eight other employees. He’s been charged with 11 counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, one count of possessing the proceeds of crime, and yet another count of simple possession because he had a joint in his pocket when police came through the door.
While charges were recently thrown out against 151 Toronto budtenders arrested at dispensary raids, there’s no guarantee crown prosecutors in Ottawa will do the same and to date no charges have been dropped against a total of 22 dispensary staff caught up in 12 police raids in the the nation’s capital city.
“They took advantage of the fact a lot of us are for medical marijuana. They (said they) shared those ideals, then they threw us to the wolves when we got arrested… It angers me. I feel they manipulated me, they abused me, 100 per cent. There aren’t enough metaphors in the world to explain how I feel about those guys.”
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