Mayor hopes letter to Health Canada will breathe life back into Vida Cannabis's plan to open plant.

The Town of Stellarton, N.S., is urging Health Canada to quickly approve a proposed medical marijuana production facility in the community, an enterprise the mayor says would bring much-needed jobs to the area.

At a town council meeting this week, a motion was passed to write a letter to Health Canada in support of Vida Cannabis's plan to operate a pot plant at the old Clairtone building on Acadia Street.

"The intent of it was to expedite the process of making 114 Acadia St. as operations for a cannabis production facility," said Stellarton Mayor Danny MacGillivray.

The owner of a Halifax medical marijuana dispensary says the business will continue to operate, despite being raided last week.

“We have to make a stand,” said Shirley Martineau. “I’m here for the patients and I’m not quitting anytime soon. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Martineau opened Auntie’s Health and Wellness on Barrington Street four months ago. Last month she told CTV Atlantic she would sell cannabis to anyone over the age of 19, whether or not they have a prescription for medical marijuana.

A Nova Scotia-based education campaign is trying to dispel common misconceptions about cannabis by asking teens if the physical and psychological risks of marijuana use are more than just “a bad trip.”

Mental health advocates launched the awareness effort Monday with a series of striking advertisements to be plastered in bus shelters across Halifax, as well as social media content to reach their 16 to 20-year-old target demographic.

Dr. Philip Tibbo, director of the Nova Scotia Early Psychosis Program at Dalhousie University, says the campaign was developed in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia to tackle to pervasive myths about marijuana – that it’s safe to drive while high, and that weed is safer than tobacco or alcohol.

A Nova Scotia safety group is scrambling to get ready for the expected legalization of marijuana.

Injury-Free Nova Scotia is holding public meetings this month to discuss cannabis safety and how sales of it should be controlled, said Shirley Burdock, executive director of Injury-Free Nova Scotia, a group advocating for policy change around alcohol, tobacco, and gambling.

“There’s no need to argue ‘should we have it, should we not’ — it’s coming,” Burdock said.

“We’ve got to make sure that people understand, first of all, this is not the marijuana that we grew up with. It’s not the Cheech and Chong stuff. A lot of us, that’s how we understood it from the movies of the day.”

Originally created for military vets, the clinic offers its counselling services to all.

A large "Plants Not Pills" sign faces busy Kings Road in Sydney, N.S., the slogan for the chain of Marijuana for Trauma clinics.

Marijuana for Trauma was founded in Fredericton with the goal of helping veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

That was the plan when the group opened a facility in Sydney last year, but it soon began branching out.

It now offers its services to civilians interested in finding out more information about the uses of medicinal marijuana.