A drug bust last week saw the long arm of the law stretch across Canada following a year-long investigation.

Kelowna RCMP say they began investigating a local individual in June 2022, and soon found out he had ties to criminal activities not only in B.C., but also in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and possibly Ontario.

In fact, they said the unnamed suspect frequently travelled to Vancouver, Burnaby, Chilliwack, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, “engaging in numerous suspicious cash transactions with individuals previously convicted of drug and firearms offences.”

2:19 2 days after setting sobering new record, B.C. marks International Overdose Awareness Day

And nine days ago, on Aug. 31, RCMP said that Kelowna Strike Force members arrested the suspect after he left a known stash location in West Kelowna.

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Afterwards, seven search warrants were

Ontario’s largest municipality without any legal cannabis retail stores has voted to now allow the shops.

Mississauga, Ont., was one of dozens of municipalities to bar retail cannabis stores from their communities when legalization came into effect in 2018.

But now, four and a half years later, city council has voted 8-4 to opt in.

It comes after a city report highlighted that Mississauga residents are “disproportionately” served by the illegal market in the absence of legal stores.

Read more: Mississauga set to reconsider ban on cannabis retail stores

Coun. Dipika Damerla put forward the motion, saying that opting out of the legal framework has allowed illegal stores to flourish in the city, including one in her ward that police have unsuccessfully tried six times to shut down.

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A new study released on Wednesday by Quebec’s statistics institute shows cannabis usage has only slightly increased since legalization in 2018.

Nearly one in five Quebecers used cannabis in 2022, a proportion similar to the previous year, data shows.

Cannabis use has increased by 5 per cent since it was legalized, according to the study which not only shows usage has remained stable since 2018, the trend remains the same for most age groups over the past 15 years — except for teens. Youths aged 15 to 17 are consuming less, but there is a new alarming trend for the under-18 crowd.

Among the different ways to consume cannabis, vaping has gained the most followers over the past year, even though the sale of cannabis vaping products is prohibited in Quebec.

In 2022, 24 per cent of users vaped cannabis, compared to 19 per cent in 2021. For those 15 to 17-years-old,