Pubdate: Sat, 01 Mar 2014
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Brian Hutchinson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MARIJUANA MAYHEM

Ottawa Replacing Medicinal Pot Plan to Curb Black Market Sales

A federal program that encouraged "exponential growth" in the 
production and sale of medical marijuana in Canada has also led to 
homicides, violent home invasions and non-stop drug dealing in 
residential neighbourhoods, according to Health Canada documents and 
data made public for the first time.

Introduced in 2001, the government's Medical Marijuana Access 
Regulations [MMAR] have lately caused so much mayhem and fostered 
such massive increases in cannabis cultivation - especially in 
British Columbia, where two million marijuana plants were authorized 
last year - that the federal government is dumping the flawed program 
for a new scheme.

The replacement, Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations [MMPR], 
comes into effect on April 1. The MMPR is supposed to eliminate 
conditions that allowed for unsafe and essentially unfettered 
marijuana production in tens of thousands of private dwellings across 
the country. The MMPR will require Canada's 37,000 authorized medical 
marijuana consumers to buy their weed from a small number of tightly 
regulated commercial grow operations, scattered across several 
provinces. Patients will no longer be allowed to cultivate their own 
marijuana or purchase it from their neighbours.

Not everyone is happy with the changes. Some medical marijuana users 
are attempting to delay or avoid the MMPR scheme, by suing the 
government of Canada. In one case, filed in federal court in 
Vancouver, five plaintiffs claim the MMPR will lead to severe 
cannabis shortages, and to higher prices, and that its provisions 
will violate their constitutional rights. The plaintiffs are seeking 
exemptions from the MMPR and an injunction preserving the MMAR.

"The old system had its problems, there's no question about it," says 
one medical marijuana insider and advocate who helps prospective 
marijuana growers obtain federal permits. "But on April 1, there's 
going to be a marijuana shortage, and there will be a significant 
percentage of the market that's going to have to resort to other 
remedies and break the law in order to obtain medicine." He spoke on 
condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from Health Canada.

As of this week, Health Canada had licensed just eight commercial 
growers, capable of producing an estimated 31,000 kilograms of 
marijuana per year. Another 12 commercial growers will be licensed by 
the April 1 regime change, Health Canada predicts.

A department spokesman said Friday that "conditions are in place for 
adequate supply to emerge." Health Canada had previously expressed 
confidence that the "fledgling licensed producer industry" will meet 
the demand for medical marijuana come next month. As a precaution, 
according to court documents obtained by the National Post, Health 
Canada has stockpiled between 400 and 500 kilograms of marijuana from 
its own former supplier, Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems. It 
has also "approved import from the Netherlands of over 100 kilograms 
of dried marijuana" this year, to help avoid a supply shortage. 
Health Canada refused on Friday to reveal how much Dutch weed the 
government has imported to date, but says that some has arrived.

There were never any concerns about marijuana shortages under the 
MMAR program, far from it. But abuse was rampant. The old rules 
permitted up to four marijuana production licences in a single 
residence, be it an apartment, townhouse or detached home. That 
"could result in an average of 352 plants being grown in a single 
dwelling," reads one Health Canada document, filed in federal court 
three weeks ago as part of the government's MMPR defence.

The department estimates that more than three million medical 
marijuana plants were cultivated in Canada last year, capable of 
producing up to 190,000 kilograms of pot. That works out to a 
staggering 17.7 grams of medical marijuana for each authorized 
consumer per day, enough to roll 54 to 90 joints. Obviously, not all 
of that product was consumed by authorized users; some, if not most, 
would have been diverted to the black market.

"The MMAR [was] never intended to permit such widespread, large-scale 
production," Health Canada's former director of medical marijuana 
regulatory reform, Jeannine Ritchot, said in a court affidavit filed 
on Feb. 7. "What was originally intended to provide legal access to 
dried marijuana for a relatively small number of seriously ill 
Canadians has grown exponentially."

Close to 30,000 Canadians were authorized to grow pot last year, a 
five-fold increase from 2010, according to Health Canada data. Most 
of them live in B.C. The number of authorized users increased 470% 
over the same three-year period.

Other Health Canada documents predict the number of authorized users 
will continue to skyrocket under the new system, to some 308,000 
consumers by 2024. The MMPR will simplify the process of obtaining 
medical marijuana permits, by allowing nurse practitioners to 
prescribe the drug, in addition to doctors.

Despite the predicted increase in consumption, society as a whole 
will benefit from the new regime, Ms. Ritchot says in her affidavit. 
The large-scale commercial operators will offer better cannabis 
products, grown under safer, sanitary conditions. Their facilities 
will be professionally managed and secured, and will be regularly 
inspected. "Compliance and enforcement activities can be carried out 
to the benefit [of ] individual users and the general public," notes 
Ms. Ritchot.

She refers in her affidavit to "thousands of pieces of 
correspondence," including "unsolicited letters from homeowners" 
received by Health Canada over the years, which, she says, help 
demonstrate "the unintended consequences of the [MMAR]." Her 
affidavit notes that under the old MMAR system, residential 
cultivation caused "significant health and safety risks" such as 
"violence, including home invasion, theft and homicide; the presence 
of firearms; diversion to the illicit market; the presence of toxic 
chemicals; various risks to children."

Ms. Ritchot quotes from more than a dozen letters, including this 
from a homeowner bothered by a medical marijuana grower living next 
door: "He has become a very aggressive neighbour," the letter-writer 
complained. "We live in constant fear of what he might do to us and 
our properties. Some of the neighbours had to install surveillance 
cameras on their houses because they are afraid of what [the licensed 
grower] and his 'friends' will do. We live in a very stressful environment."

Another homeowner wrote to Health Canada about their new neighbours: 
"They started an indoor marijuana growop. This is no small operation. 
They are known cocaine and ecstasy dealers also. The RCMP busted them 
for a large quantity of marijuana and cash two years ago. They have 
never quit growing it because they got a doctor's prescription for 
medical marijuana and started growing twice as much while they were 
waiting to go to court.... We have this drug factory in a normally 
great neighbourhood with kids and families."

The affidavit also refers to correspondence from municipal officials. 
One letter Health Canada received from a B.C. district office 
described how "demands for electricity from exceedingly large 
marijuana grow operations, some licensed and some not, have caused 
power outages that have left legitimate businesses without the 
ability to function."

Will the new system eliminate illicit production, and all the 
problems associated with it? Very unlikely. What is certain, however, 
is that consumption of government approved marijuana will grow higher 
and higher.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom