CONSERVATIVES TO BAR MEDICAL MARIJUANA USERS FROM GROWING THEIR OWN POT

Move Follows Complaints From Municipalities and Police About Abuse Of
the Current System

The federal government is expected to announce new rules for medical
marijuana that would make it so only a few licensed growers would be
permitted 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.

"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 they will begin consulting on
new rules in the "near future."

Steve Outhouse wouldn't give specifics about any changes, but said the
rules "will balance patient access to medical marijuana while
strengthening public safety."

Recently, mayors and councillors across the country have been
complaining, saying the current system poses dangers when growers
don't follow local electrical, health and safety bylaws.

At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference earlier this
month, delegates approved a resolution to ask that Health Canada issue
licences only to growers who have already received a licence from
their respective municipality.

In March, two mayors in Metro Vancouver wrote to Health Minister Leona
Aglukkaq, saying too many licences are floating around, making it
impossible for municipalities to know who is licensed and whether
those growers are operating safely. The mayors of Langley City and
Langley Township also wrote that they knew "based on actual cases,
that there is significant misuse of many licences and the volume of
product produced often exceeds an individual's personal
requirement."

Late last month, RCMP drug investigators 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. They
found 1,490 plants instead of the 220 permitted by two licences
provided by Health Canada to grow medical pot.