OTTAWA CRACKS DOWN ON MEDICAL POT

OTTAWA . The federal government is expected to announce new rules for
growing medical marijuana that would only allow licensed growers to
cultivate and distribute it.

The move would eliminate individual and private growers from the
current system, whereby eligible people apply to Health Canada, which
then issues the licence.

People in the dispensing community who have been hearing about the
impending change say it's unwelcome, and will do more harm than good.

"By privatizing the industry, they'll effectively be removing the
rights of medical cannabis patients to produce their own cannabis,"
said Adam Greenblatt, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of
Medical Cannabis Dispensaries.

"That's problematic because you have patients who spend many years
trying to find the variety that works for them, and also because some
patients have invested a lot of money in growing supplies."

A spokesman for the Health Minister said consultations on new rules
would begin in the "near future."

Late last month, RCMP drug investigators in B.C. arrested three men
and seized a helicopter after raiding a Maple Ridge property growing
almost seven times more pot than its two medical marijuana licences
permitted. The Federal Drug Enforcement Branch found 1,490 plants
instead of the 220 permitted by two licences provided by Health Canada
to grow medical pot.