The Licensing and Standards Committee is set to debate and review the current state of marijuana dispensaries in Toronto on Monday.

The meeting follows a string of raids linked to the proliferation of pot storefronts in neighbourhoods across the city.

Toronto police executed four search warrants and made 23 arrests related to the marijuana dispensary crackdown last Thursday.

At the end of this week, President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will meet in Ottawa for the North American Leaders’ Summit. Since the summit was first convened in 2005, this regular gathering has been used to discuss shared economic and security issues, like trade and resource management. This year, however, these three leaders have a unique chance to address the future of an industry that will be among the defining political and economic forces of the next ten years, if not the next fifty. That industry is legal cannabis.

A group of Democratic lawmakers is renewing pressure on the Drug Enforcement Administration to remove marijuana from its current position on a list of the most dangerous drugs, a category that includes heroin and ecstasy.

Marijuana’s classification as a “Schedule I” drug is “a main barrier” to research on its potential health benefits and conflicts with a decision by half of the states to approve medical marijuana laws, eight Democratic senators wrote this week in a letter to the DEA and the Department of Justice, its parent agency.

DEA spokesman Russ Baer said in an interview that the agency is in the “final stages” of its deliberation on the issue, and he said a decision on whether to reschedule marijuana is expected “sometime soon.”

Federal marijuana law reform could become an official part of the national Democratic Party Platform. That’s if supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have their way.

“You want real change in this country, you want it now and are prepared to take on the political cowardice and powerful special interests which have prevented that change from happening,” Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, wrote in an email to his supporters. “One place we think the agenda of these 12 million Americans should be reflected is in the official platform of the Democratic Party.”

On Monday, Paraguay’s top anti-drug official stepped down, two days after a botched anti-cannabis operation left a three-year-old girl dead at the hands of his troops.

Luis Rojas resigned as head of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD), under apparent pressure from President Horacio Cartes. The deadly operation took place in the Nueva Italia municipality, where SENAD troops searching for cannabis plantations apparently fired on a van—which proved to be carrying members of the Zanotti Cavazzoni family, owners of a local sugar plantation and mill. The girl’s uncle was also wounded in the attack. The girl was the grand-daughter of Ulrico Zanotti Cavazzoni, local sugar oligarch and land-owner.

A month after police raids on storefront medicinal marijuana dispensaries, dozens continue to sell pot across Toronto including some raided outlets that have reopened.

“We understand the illegality of what we’re doing,” says Katey Asaph of Eden Medicinal Society on Queen St. W., which resumed sales to those with proof of an ailment or injury a few days after the May 26 raids that saw staff, including Asaph, hit with Criminal Code drug trafficking charges.

“There will always be a chance (of another raid) going forward, but we continue to remain open to provide a safe and comfortable space so that our clients can rely on us for cannabis access.”

The campaign over whether the state should legalize recreational marijuana use is heating up, as opponents of a legalization referendum warned at a news conference Thursday that edible marijuana products could pose a danger for unsuspecting children.

Standing before a table covered with THC-infused candy, cookies, soda and other edible products, state Rep. Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury), of the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, warned that similar products would flood the market, should voters approve a proposed referendum in the fall.

Kane said she fears the products would be especially enticing to children.

In 2010, the cities of Oakland and Berkeley both started regulating large-scale medical cannabis cultivation, but federal threats and foot-dragging bureaucrats quickly stopped those efforts. More than five years later, both are moving forward again thanks to their adoption of the statewide Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA).

For years now, the city has said it will dial back arrests and prosecution of low-level marijuana cases: in 2014, Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bratton said the city would start handing out more tickets and summonses in place of arrests, and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said it would no longer prosecute most cases in which people were caught with amounts of marijuana under 25 grams.