FEDS LOOK TO RESTRICT POT GROWERS

The Move Follows Complaints From Municipalities and Police About Abuse
of the Current System.

Len Garis, Pitt Meadows resident and president of the fire chiefs
association, is pleased the Conservative government is looking at
limiting the number of people who can grow medical marijuana.

The federal government is expected to announce new rules for medical
marijuana that would permit only a few licensed growers to cultivate
and distribute it.

"Communities will be safer as a result, simple as that," Garis said.
"I congratulate Minister [of Health Leona] Aglukkaq for bringing this
forward and for allowing a consultation process to take place in the
meantime, with community stakeholders, to help us work to solve our
immediate concerns."

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

Delegates at the Fire Chiefs Association of B.C. annual conference
this month decided to raise the issue with Ottawa.

Late last month, RCMP drug investigators raided an east Maple Ridge
property and found almost seven times more pot growing than permitted.

While the property was the site of two approved Health Canada medical
marijuana production licences, the total only allowed 220 plants; 122
on one licence and 98 on another.

RCMP drug enforcement officers seized trailers for mobile grow-ops,
1,490 marijuana plants, a R44 helicopter, two pickup trucks, and three
30- to 40-foot enclosed mobile marijuana grow labs that were not yet
in use, according to RCMP Const. Michael McLaughlin, media relations
officer for federal programs, E Division. Three men were also arrested.

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, Steve Outhouse, said they will
begin consulting on new rules in the "near future."

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