Pubdate: Wed, 19 Mar 2014
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Robert Bostelaar
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

THE $400,000 SMOKE SIGNAL

Ditch Pot Stash or We'll Turn You In, Health Canada Warns Patients

Health Canada will spend $400,000 to warn medical marijuana users 
under a soon-to-expire federal program to trash their stash or risk 
time in the joint.

In a published statement, the agency says the outlay will cover the 
cost of alerting 42,000 participants by mail that marijuana obtained 
under the program will be illegal after March 31 and adding staff to 
track responses to a questionnaire on the amount of dried pot, seeds 
and plants each user has destroyed.

That same staff has been instructed to drop a dime - or as Health 
Canada puts it, "take compliance and enforcement action (that) 
includes informing law enforcement" - on any registered user who 
fails to return the form or responds with the wrong answers. Users 
with a doctor's note will still be able buy marijuana for medical 
purposes after April 1, but only from commercial suppliers licensed 
under a new program put in place last fall. They can no longer grow 
their own weed or buy it from individuals with supplier licences - 
provisions under the old program that police say spurred illegal 
trafficking and other crime.

The Health Canada letter stresses that users cannot legally possess 
marijuana obtained under the former program after March 31, even if 
their licence shows a later expiry date. Stockpiles can be disposed 
of in regular household garbage, but users should first "break up the 
plant material, blend the marijuana with water and mix it with cat 
litter to mask the odour" - presumably to avoid offering any 
temptation to waste-collection crews.

There's no mention of whether it should go in the green bin.

The agency said it is ensuring compliance because "some law 
enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, such as municipalities 
and provinces, have expressed concerns about the accountability of 
the large number of licence holders obligated to destroy their marijuana."

Users who ignore the warning could run big risks. While the 
Conservative government recently floated the idea of allowing police 
to issue tickets for simple possession - a possible acknowledgment of 
changing public attitudes and moves by Colorado and Washington state 
to legalize marijuana sales - the same government last year toughened 
its drug laws to provide a mandatory six-month minimum jail term for 
growing as few as six marijuana plants.

That's a concern for a well-known Ottawa medical marijuana crusader. 
Russell Barth says he and his wife, Christine Low, do not grow 
marijuana but will refuse to discard pot they have obtained from 
growers licensed under the current program.

"We've never had a dealer threaten to call the cops on us," said 
Barth. "Now we have Health Canada, threatening to call the cops on 
us." Low uses marijuana to reduce symptoms of epilepsy. Barth has 
said it helped him to overcome sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome and 
erectile dysfunction.

Others also oppose the switch to commercial suppliers, which they say 
will force up costs and could make certain strains that work for them 
unavailable. In Vancouver on Tuesday, a lawyer for a group of medical 
marijuana patients told a Federal Court judge that stopping his 
clients from growing their own pot would violate their charter rights.

John Conroy is asking for an injunction to prevent the new 
regulations from taking effect until the court can rule on his 
constitutional challenge. Conroy says the federal government brought 
in the current medical marijuana regime more than a decade ago after 
a court order, and a series of subsequent cases has reaffirmed the 
right of patients to grow their own marijuana.

He said the new law would effectively force patients to choose 
between their medicine and potential jail time, since growing for 
personal use would be illegal under the new regulations.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom