PICKING A FIGHT

The City of Pitt Meadows is one step away from banning the growth of
medical marijuana - for distribution - in residential and agricultural
zones.

Pitt Meadows doesn't have an industrial area, yet, so amending its
land-use bylaw effectively prohibits what is legal under federal law.

Growing medical marijuana for personal use would still be permitted in
the city, but growing for others as a "home-based business" would not
be allowed.

In Canada, there are 1,137 residents who hold a Personal Use
Production Licence or Designated-Person Production Licence from Health
Canada - permits that allow you to grow legal cannabis.

Currently, 85 per cent of those authorized have 25 plants or
less.

However, some are exceeding their limits, as seen recently in Maple
Ridge, where police caught one such grower with more than 1,500 plants.

Then there was a shooting at another one.

Pitt council is concerned about fire and crime, often associated with
grow-ops.

But why then outlaw legal grow-ops in agricultural areas? The city
could regulate them, requiring property owners to pass safety
inspections, as they are in residential areas still.

Essentially banning them outright is just going to push growers
underground - increasing the safety risks because they won't be regulated.

Then again, maybe the city will nab them with its safety inspection
team, which the B.C. Court of Appeal deemed a violation of charter
privacy rights earlier this year. A warrant is now needed.

Now this - no medical marijuana grow-ops.

Fact is, marijuana helps people with cancers like leukemia and
melanoma, and diseases like Crohn's. And some of them can't grow their
own, which is why the federal distribution licenses exist.

But the city wants to overrule what Health Canada has determined is
good for everyone else in the country.

The city's intentions in this case may be good, but the resulting ban
would discriminate against those who are sick.

Pitt Meadows needs to pick on someone else, maybe the marijuana
growers with guns.