Alejandro Abellan (born May 13, 1965, in Murcia, Spain) is a Canadian film and television actor and Cannabis Advocate.
The son of Spanish immigrants, his first role in the film industry was as Antonio Banderas's stand-in and photo double for the film The Thirteenth Warrior. [1] Alejandro's first big acting role was as Tito in "Phenomenon", based on the John Travolta movie. Alejandro then appeared as Coach Quintero on the Nickelodeon show Romeo! . Alejandro has also been in a few featured films such as Gray Matters.[ citation needed ]
In 2014, he founded National Access Cannabis becoming its first CEO. [2] National Access Cannabis Corp went on to become Canada's largest publicly traded cannabis retailer by revenue. [3] Alex is currently the owner of Chakra Cannabis and is a voice towards the responsible and safe use of cannabis. [4]
Alex Abellan founded one of Canada's first Medical Marijuana dispensaries in 2014 when he became CEO of National Access Cannabis. With National Access Cannabis he worked with the Canadian government to advocate for responsible and safe distribution of Cannabis. [5] Alex worked with the Australian government to help provide medical marijuana treatment for Tabetha and Georgia-Grace Fulton who were suffering from a rare lung disease. [6] Alex Abellan was featured in Maclean's Magazine highlighting his advocacy amongst angel investors, government officials and tech innovators. [7]
Second Cup Cafe. is a Canadian restaurant chain, coffee retailer, and roaster. Its headquarters are in Mississauga, Ontario. Its stores sell hot and cold beverages, pastries, snacks, pre-packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, and drinkware, including mugs and tumblers.
High Times is an American monthly magazine that advocates the legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade. The magazine had its own book publishing division, High Times Books, and its own record label, High Times Records.
Marc Scott Emery is a Canadian cannabis rights activist, entrepreneur and politician. Often described as the "Prince of Pot", Emery has been a notable advocate of international cannabis policy reform, and has been active in multiple Canadian political parties at the provincial and federal levels. Emery has been jailed several times for his cannabis activism.
In the United States, the removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the category reserved for drugs that have "no currently accepted medical use", is a proposed legal and administrative change in cannabis-related law at the federal level. After being proposed repeatedly since 1972, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated 2024 rulemaking to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The majority of 2024 public comments supported descheduling, decriminalizing, or legalizing marijuana at the federal level.
Steven Wynn "Steve" Kubby was a Libertarian Party activist who played a key role in the drafting and passage of California Proposition 215. The proposition was a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana which was approved by voters in 1996. Kubby was known as a cancer patient who relied on medical cannabis.
Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing, legalizing, or repealing laws that prohibit the production, possession, sale, or use of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include drug legalization, drug relegalization, and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug liberalization may favor a regulatory regime for the production, marketing, and distribution of some or all currently illegal drugs in a manner analogous to that for alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.
The use, sale, and possession of cannabis containing over 0.3% THC by dry weight in the United States, despite laws in many states permitting it under various circumstances, is illegal under federal law. As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, cannabis containing over 0.3% THC by dry weight is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and a high potential for abuse and physical or psychological dependence. Cannabis use is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs. However, individual states have enacted legislation permitting exemptions for various uses, including medical, industrial, and recreational use.
In the United States, the use of cannabis for medical purposes is legal in 38 states, four out of five permanently inhabited U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia, as of March 2023. Ten other states have more restrictive laws limiting THC content, for the purpose of allowing access to products that are rich in cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of cannabis. There is significant variation in medical cannabis laws from state to state, including how it is produced and distributed, how it can be consumed, and what medical conditions it can be used for.
Cannabis political parties are generally single-issue parties that exist to oppose the laws against cannabis.
Marc-Boris St-Maurice is an activist, politician and Canadian musician, who has campaigned for many years for the legalization of cannabis, and to facilitate access to the drug for health reasons. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Canopy Growth Corporation, formerly Tweed Marijuana Inc., is a cannabis company based in Smiths Falls, Ontario.
Chuck Rifici is a Canadian entrepreneur, former CEO of Tweed Marijuana Inc, and former CFO of the Liberal Party of Canada. He has been tagged "the godfather of Canadian weed".
Cannabis in Puerto Rico is illegal for recreational use. Legislation to ban cannabis was passed in 1932, and legislation to legalize medical use was passed in 2017. Although the medical use of cannabis is permitted, smoking it is prohibited.
CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. is a Canadian public licensed producer of medical cannabis. It is primarily focused on cannabis oil. The company's predecessor, Prairie Plant Systems, was established in 1988 and is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In 2013 CanniMed became the first cannabis producer to be licensed under Health Canada regulations that were issued that year. It went public in 2016, and in March 2018 almost all of its stock was acquired by a rival producer, Aurora Cannabis, following a hostile takeover to which company management finally consented.
David Frederick Hepburn is a Canadian author and a retired medical doctor. He was a Canadian naval surgeon in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He is the author of the book Doctor is In(sane) and he also writes columns by the names "Dave Barry of medicine" and the "Patch Adams of the podium" which are published simultaneously in Canada and the United States, as well as a radio show called "WiseQuack." He received the "Columnist of the Year" award for both the Arizona Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association.
Tokyo Smoke is a Canadian recreational cannabis retail brand owned by OEG Inc. that operates in the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan. It was co-founded by father and son Lorne and Alan Gertner in 2015.
The Cannabis Act (C-45) of June, 2018 paved the way for the legalization of cannabis in Canada on 17 October 2018. Police and prosecution services in all Canadian jurisdictions are currently capable of pursuing criminal charges for cannabis marketing without a licence issued by Health Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the federal Parliament has the power to criminalize the possession of cannabis and that doing so does not infringe upon the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ontario Court of Appeal and the Superior Court of Ontario have, however, held that the absence of a statutory provision for medical marijuana is unconstitutional, and to that extent the federal law is of no force and/or effect if a prescription is obtained. The recreational use of cannabis has been legalized by the federal government, and took effect on 17 October 2018.
The Cannabis Act is a law which legalized recreational cannabis use in Canada in combination with its companion legislation Bill C-46, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code. The law is a milestone in the legal history of cannabis in Canada, alongside the 1923 prohibition.
Medical cannabis research includes any medical research on using cannabis. The earliest systematic studies of physiological effects of cannabis-derived chemical were conducted in the 1920's. The level or research activity in this area remained relatively low and constant until 1966, when a 10-fold increase in publication activity occurred within 10 years. After the adoption of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances in 1971 there was a drop in research publishing, which continued till ca. 1987. Since then, cannabis research has been continuously on the rise. There is no apparent inflection point is 2013, when Uruguay "became the first country in the world to fully regulate its marijuana market, from production to consumption and distribution." Since then a large number of countries enacted policies on medical cannabis research, and there are substantial differences between such policies in different countries.
Raf Souccar is a Canadian former deputy police commissioner who lead the anti-drugs work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. After leaving the police force, Souccar launched and led a medical cannabis company.