Pubdate: Wed, 24 Jul 2013
Source: Powell River Peak (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Peak Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.prpeak.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/734
Author: Chris Bolster

COUNCIL GIVES OKAY TO MEDICAL POT

Mayor Sees Growing Potential

City of Powell River mayor and council voted unanimously last week in 
support of a motion that would allow the city to take advantage of 
new rules around medical marijuana and step in at the ground level.

Councillor Debbie Dee introduced the motion to the special council 
meeting on Thursday, July 18, after council heard staff's report on 
the city growing and researching medical marijuana and industrial hemp.

"This is not about decriminalization of marijuana," said Mac Fraser, 
chief administrative officer. "It's putting [medical marijuana] into 
a regulatory and law-enforcement scheme."

Dee and Mayor Dave Formosa spoke about the opportunity for increasing 
the city's tax base by taking advantage of the changes to the federal 
program at a committee-of-the-whole meeting, Thursday, June 20.

Councillor Chris McNaughton, who voted against the decriminalization 
of marijuana at last year's Union of BC Municipalities conference in 
Victoria, said he is in favour of the changes to the medical 
marijuana program in Canada.

"This I see is a very important opportunity for the community and the 
country," he said.

The federal government's new regulations for medical marijuana, which 
take effect in 2014, will create conditions for a new, commercial 
industry responsible for its own production and distribution. 
Patients will be allowed to buy prescribed amounts only from licensed 
producers approved by Health Canada. The federal government will no 
longer produce or distribute medical marijuana and users will no 
longer be allowed to grow the plant at home.

"From a safety point of view the original medical marijuana plan was 
a disaster," said Councillor Maggie Hathaway. "There were all kinds 
of safety issues and lack of reporting. I'm happy to proceed down 
this road and see what we can do to help improve the situation."

With the original medical marijuana plan, introduced in 2001, less 
than 500 growers were initially registered to participate, but over 
the last 12 years that number has increased to over 30,000. As the 
number of growers has increased, so has the cost to Heath Canada.

Councillor Jim Palm commented that he is also in favour of the 
changes federally as there is "need of regulations to be put in place 
to control this proliferation."

Formosa reported that he conducted his own informal poll of city 
residents on the issue and found that a majority of those he spoke to 
supported the idea of medical marijuana and industrial hemp being 
grown in the city.

Formosa said he was asked about the potential impact that legalizing 
marijuana could have on operations. "If companies or the city is 
vested in this industry and they legalize it, it's no different than 
when they legalized alcohol," he said. "They're still going to have 
to have someone to produce and sell it and the government's going to 
want their tax. So I don't see the industry going away, but actually growing."

Dr. Paul Martiquet is medical health officer for rural Vancouver 
Coastal Health including Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, 
Sea-to-Sky, Bella Bella and Bella Coola.

"If Powell River can supply the medical needs of its residents with 
its own medical grade marijuana that's something that I would 
support," he said.

He and other medical health officers around the province have 
advocated changing the federal government's approach from prohibition 
to looking at the problem as a public health issue that emphasizes 
harm reduction, prevention and education.

Although Martiquet was unable to provide precise statistics on 
medical marijuana prescriptions, he did comment that he thought it 
was "common," and that medical marijuana had the support of national 
and provincial medical associations.

He did caution that smoking anything was not without risks and 
suggested that using a vaporizer was a safer approach to taking 
medical marijuana. "The main concern around marijuana and smoking 
anything is that you're not just inhaling the active ingredients, the 
THC [Tetrahydrocannabinol], but also a lot of other carcinogens."
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