Around once a month, an armoured truck pulls away from a loading dock at the old Hershey Co.'s chocolate factory in Smiths Falls, Ont., carrying boxes packed with dozens of kilograms of marijuana destined for Germany.
Bumping across the roads south of Ottawa, the truck heads to an undisclosed airport, where the product is stored in a secure depot - alongside other sensitive items such as gold, cash and firearms - before crossing the Atlantic on a direct cargo flight.
Touching down in Germany, the crates are placed in another armoured vehicle and shuttled to a nondescript building in an industrial park south of Heidelberg, where the marijuana is processed, packaged and shipped around the country.
It's a scene that could easily be in a Netflix narco-drama, but it's real, all above board and carefully monitored by both Health Canada and Germany's Federal Ministry of Health.
The product is transported in airtight containers, where temperatures are closely watched and kept below 25 C. Respectable German citizens can walk to their local pharmacy and buy Ontario bud in neat white bottles. The German government will even foot most of the bill.
