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The revolution in natural Indigenous healing associated with the cannabis plant has taken another significant step forward. Readers may be familiar with the booming medical cannabis industry in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, where there has been an explosive growth of Indigenous run cannabis dispensaries. That movement has inspired Rob Stevenson, an Anishinaabe man of the Bear Clan belonging to the Alderville First Nation, to launch his own business – the first Indigenous medical cannabis dispensary outside of Tyendinaga – on June 21, 2017.

As Kevin Daniels, national vice president for the National Indigenous Medical Cannabis Association, put it, “There are cannabis dispensaries opening up across the country, but we’re still being left out. The time has come as Indigenous growers, owners, workers and patients to take sovereign control of cannabis in our communities. How we regulate it and how we distribute it, all has to come from our people to Canadian society and government.”