British Columbia officials call for "redefining" medical cannabis program

The British Columbia government has made it clear that it does not want to completely abolish the rather loose use of medical cannabis, recognizing that many patients are legally growing their own marijuana as a more affordable option than buying drugs from a licensed manufacturer. However, officials have serious concerns about the amount of legal psychoactive cannabis that some users are allowed to produce and the lack of post-approval controls. 

The arguments that representatives of the state structures of Canada are voicing as such, which should become the basis for revising the program of using the medicinal properties of cannabis in the "Country of the Maple Leaf" are constantly being raised by representatives of the law enforcement agencies of our country. In order to understand how urgent this problem is and to demonstrate the mechanisms for its solution, we publish the position of officials of one of the administrative-territorial units of Canada, raised before the federal government of the country.

British Columbia officials are pressuring the Canadian federal government to overhaul its program of growing legal psychoactive cannabis at home for medical use. As an argument, there are cases of illegal circulation of a significant amount of hemp raw materials, which is allowed by persons who are given the opportunity for legal cultivation. 

 Number of personal or specialized licenses for the legal cultivation of psychoactive cannabis for further medical use

“We know that the program allows patients to manufacture their drugs at a lower cost than they can afford, but we also know that psychoactive cannabis abuse is serious and that medicinal marijuana is a significant source of drugs in the illegal market.” British Columbia Secretary of Public Safety Mike Farnworth's office said.

“We would also like to see the federal government review the access to health care program, in particular for personal and special production,” the ministry said in a statement.

The British Columbia government has made it clear that it does not want to completely abolish the rather loose use of medical cannabis, recognizing that many patients are legally growing their own marijuana as a more affordable option than buying drugs from a licensed manufacturer. However, officials have serious concerns about the amount of legal psychoactive cannabis that some users are allowed to produce and the lack of post-authorization controls.

Ministry officials say some patients who are allowed legal use of legal psychoactive cannabis are allowed to consume more than 100 grams of the plant per day, which allows them to grow more than 500 plants indoors or 200 plants outdoors, in accordance with the transformation formula set out in federal decree ... And since the regulations allow legal psychoactive cannabis to be grown for four people in one site, “potentially thousands of plants could be grown in one place - in other words, (this is) a commercial operation,” ministry officials said. Provincial law enforcement officials point out that residential neighborhoods sometimes create private and designated sites for the production of legal psychoactive cannabis, "where they can have a huge impact on neighbors, and, unlike commercial operations, there are several rules for growing such plants." ... This creates "serious problems" for local authorities as well, officials say. 

"All of this means that while we value the benefits of allowing health care consumers to produce their own cannabis, the way the medical program currently operates has a significant and unacceptable impact on the wider community of citizens in the country."

British Columbia's Department of Public Safety says it is encouraging that Health Canada "appears to be taking first steps" to address some of the program's concerns.

The following information is provided as examples:

•  initial steps are taken by the Federal Department of Health to use its authority to deny or revoke approvals for public health and safety reasons;

•  Federal government officials are attempting to contact medical regulatory authorities across Canada "where there is concern about doctors permitting very high daily use of legal psychoactive cannabis."

The British Columbia Cannabis Authority says “the program requires extensive review and reform. We urge the federal government to prioritize this work by raising these issues to Health Canada at regular meetings and striving to support the federal government in its efforts to change it. ” 

Commentary of the specialists of the Association "Ukrainian technical hemp"

The Health Canada program allows patients to legally obtain psychoactive cannabis directly from licensed growers. One part of the above program allows patients to grow a certain amount of marijuana plants for their own medical use, depending on the amount prescribed by the doctor for daily use. Patients are awaiting approval from Health Canada for each site where the plants will be grown or someone else who will grow a certain amount of hemp raw materials for them. 

Health Canada reported 43,211 registrations for personal or specialty medical production as of September 2020, the latest month for which data are available. Approximately 8,590 of the above registrations (licenses) are in British Columbia.

Health Canada registered 53 cases (29 - 2019; 24 - 2020) of registration revocations for personal or special production, which is less than 0.01% of all licenses available for the legal cultivation of psychoactive cannabis in the country.

During the round table “ Problems and prospects of using therapeutically active elements of hemp as a basis for nutraceuticals, medicinal cosmetics, animal feed or other products with healing properties of a plant ” held for the listeners of the 6th stream of “ Hemp University ”, attention will be focused on the need to implement the concept previously proposed by the Association "Ukrainian technical hemp" regarding the feasibility of improving the current regulatory framework in order to regulate the possibility of using therapeutically active elements of hemp for industrial purposes. cannabis of a therapeutic orientation (having a huge therapeutic effect). Regulation of this issue at the level of a departmental regulatory legal document will allow not only in Ukraine to to use everywhere the products with enormous therapeutic potential, but also to legally grow plants for the citizens of our country in need of it. A feature of national varieties that have significant therapeutic potential is the fact that the use of the leaves and inflorescences of technical hemp of a therapeutic orientation for recreational purposes or in the interests of the drug market is impossible, therefore, arguments that some of the raw materials may “go into illicit trafficking” on than the representatives of the law enforcement agencies of our country can insist are initially insolvent.

In connection with the outbreak of COVID 19 and the quarantine announced in connection with this in Kiev, training will be conducted using a secure and fully virtualized Cisco WebEx Meetings web conferencing solution. A link will be sent to the registered listeners by e-mail to participate in the event remotely.