When these new laws go into effect on April 1st, existing medical
marijuana patients will no longer be able to grow their own weed.
Instead, these roughly 40,000 registered Canadian marijuana patients
will have to turn to corporate, legal grow-ops that are being built and
regulated all across the country.
This means that patients will have
much higher costs (Canada’s new legal grows will charge these patients $5-$7.50 a gram), while also being provided with a more limited selection of cannabis.
Thus far, it seems that Canada’s new corporate medical marijuana system
will only sell buds—which means no waxes, oils, or edibles. That may
seem like a minor deal (though, of course, weed culture worldwide has
diversified greatly to enjoy these variants) but for patients who are
unable to smoke or vaporize, like lung cancer sufferers, removing these
products from the catalog greatly limits the efficacy of Canada’s
medical program.
Variety aside, Health Canada is stripping the rights of patients
nationwide who are simply looking to grow a plant in their own home that
they use to treat their symptoms.
The Canadian government has also
issued a form, which all existing medical marijuana patients need to
fill out, in order to confirm that they will be complying with the
unwelcome change. If you want to see what a government form designed to
destroy Canada’s newly-illegal medical marijuana supply looks like.
In Section B of Health Canada’s “Notification Form,” patients are asked
“Did you destroy dried marijuana/seeds?” and “Did you destroy marijuana
plants?” with an extra field to indicate how much marijuana was
eviscerated to comply with this new system.
Apparently, Health Canada is
quite serious about enforcing this marijuana-destruction policy, as
they have clearly stated: “If participants do not comply with the
requirement to notify Health Canada, the Department will notify law
enforcement.”
According to a report posted on Reddit, some patients have already
experienced a heads-up from law enforcement about these new medical
marijuana laws. In a post published on /r/Canada entitled “RCMP Knocking on MMAR Patients Doors,”
one user wrote:
“Two days ago in the morning, the RCMP showed up on my
doorstep. 2 plainclothes officers in an unmarked vehicle wearing their
kevlar and armed. Drug squad, I believe. They wanted to make us aware of
the new laws going into effect on April 1st, and started asking
questions about my husband's production license. This is information
they should not have had as it is private medical information.
I reached out to a few friends who also have their MMAR licenses, who
reached out to their friends, and etc. We're not the only people who
have had visits from the RCMP in the last few days, and all of them with
production licenses.”
While I was not able to verify this Reddit user’s claim, there
certainly is precedent for Canadian law enforcement and Health Canada
being wildly out of sync when it comes to medical marijuana patients. In
2006, while waiting for his medical marijuana license to be renewed,
AIDS sufferer Tom Shapiro from Regina had his plants seized by police.
Tom blamed “Health Canada for telling him he could grow marijuana while
waiting for the renewal of his medical marijuana licence.”
What’s clear is that Health Canada is at the ready to release the
information of medical marijuana patients, who don’t comply with their
corporate-friendly medical weed plan, if they haven’t begun to do so
already.
I reached out to Lisa Campbell, the Outreach Director over at Canadian
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and a Fort McMurray–based medical
marijuana patient, for her thoughts on this seismic shift by the
Canadian government. She wrote:
“As a medical cannabis patient I am
extremely offended by Health Canada's latest attempt to control
‘marihuana.’ Not only can they not decide how they want to spell it,
they are criminalizing patients by disclosing their personal health
information, whether through mail outs or directly sharing data with the
RCMP.
Personally, I applied for a personal production license last
summer while I was volunteering on an organic farm, which also had a
designated grower licence. Inspired by my experience watering the plants
during sunset, I thought I would apply in order to save money and have
more choice of strains than the Prarie Plant System shwag.
I ended up
using my permanent address at my parents house, so now I'm finding out
that if I don't fill out this new form then the government will send the
RCMP to their house. I am outraged that our government would share
personal health information for criminal purposes, especially as I never
even ended up growing! Hemp seeds aren't even illegal in Canada, and I
enjoy them in my oatmeal and smoothies every morning.
I still have the leftover shitty Health Canada weed which is so low in
THC I use it like tobacco batch for joints. After learning how high it
tested in heavy metals and how bad quality it is, I have no qualms
getting rid of it.
What worries me is the patients and designated
growers who have put years of work into developing strains to treat
their symptoms. Now the new licensed producers are able to buy clones
from the former designated growers, so they are basically forced to sell
their intellectual property with no ability to negotiate on price.”
Matt Mernagh, Toronto mayoral candidate and marijuana advocate,
had a much more harsh statement: “This is a heinous act! Words do not
describe how awful these motherfuckers are acting.
This has nothing to
do with public safety but RCMP orchestrating a boot-fucking to some of
Canada’s sickest citizens. The person who came up with this plan is a
monster.
The Minister of Health is taking direction from the RCMP. This
is a huge police action. The man is picking on the sick and dying
because they are cowards.
Fuck these people! Any RCMP officer or Health
Canada official engaged in this plot deserves to get asshole cancer and
die a miserable death because they took away natural medication away
from others. Heil Harper!”
Whether or not you join Mr. Mernagh in wishing butt cancer on law
enforcement or health care officials, his outrage at this new, highly
regulated medical marijuana system—which will provide a monopoly to
government-authorized, corporate grow-ops that will be the exclusive
merchants to medical marijuana patients in Canada—is completely
understandable.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of patients, many of whom
have debilitating diseases and sicknesses, have been stripped of the
right to grow their own plants. While politicians like Ted Adlem, mayor
of Mission, British Columbia, insist: “I
don't think any municipal police department is going to go and try and
search for somebody who is growing for their own personal use," it seems as if Health Canada and the RCMP have different intentions.
Meanwhile, as the medical marijuana system braces for massive change,
the Justice Department is supposedly planning to “soften” penalties for
non-medical marijuana laws by removing some criminal code provisions, in
favour of a more open-liquor style ticketing system for police.
As the Globe and Mail pointed out:
“One critic said the move, if implemented, could be more onerous for
recreational marijuana users, as police who turn a blind eye to it now
would instead start writing tickets.”
There’s obviously a lot of government money to be made when it comes to
authorizing corporate grow-ops, while collecting fines from
recreational marijuana users.
This new system obviously does not have
the interest, comfort, and health of medical marijuana patients in mind
as the top priority; and the Justice Department’s move towards a falsely
soft enforcement policy makes that even clearer.
With so much of the
world moving towards a more open system of legalization, it’s
unfortunate to see Canada move in the opposite direction. Hopefully next
year’s federal election will shake up this system for the better.
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