buckets
Well-Known Member
Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulatory Reform,
Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate,

Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch,

Health Canada,
Address Locator: AL3503D
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K9
Re: Feedback on the new Medical Marijuana rules:
To the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulatory Reform Office:
I am writing to you today to provide my feedback and ask you to seriously rethink the new plans that you have for medical marijuana. Why? In my opinion its because Health Canada still hasnt got things right for the citizens of Canada. These new laws do not help the citizens that need this medicine.
To start with, many other medical users and myself have noticed that the people you have consulted are the people that are generally paid by either the Provincial or Federal Government. Its obvious that you havent really made the effort to contact the consumer at any level that would prove you to be seriously interested in how they felt about your new rules. You have the police super happy and you have the fire department smiling. But you certainly have the population in an uproar and they are the end users of the program that you have designed.
I see many court cases being filed against Health Canada because of this. The Supreme court has told everyone in this country including your department, that if a citizen needs medical marijuana they are allowed to have access to it. Your new regulations complicate this ruling in my opinion.
It makes no sense to the citizen allowed to use medical marijuana that you would no longer allow people to grow it. If people need higher amounts because they prefer not to smoke it and you say to them that they have to pay $8 a gram from either a commercial grower or a pharmacy that makes no sense to me either. Youre going to ask a pensioner to pay the big bucks for the higher prescriptions? Are you out of your minds? It might make sense to your government colleagues but it doesnt to the people you are supposed to be designing the system for. Just to remind you, thats the citizens not the police or the fire department!
You do not allow people to convert medical marijuana into marijuana oil and yet there is anecdotal evidence that this treatment kills cancer cells! Granted, research has to be done so why are you not allowing people to get access to higher amounts for this purpose? The cure for cancer is at your doorstep and you ignore it because of big business? If thats the honest truth then you shouldnt be in power and you shouldnt be collecting a government paycheck. The bottom line is that once you have cancer or your spouse or your kids have cancer you will do everything in your power to stop it from killing the person or the animal that you love. For the longest while Health Canada has been moaning about the higher dosages saying the excess all goes to the black market. I put it to you that these amounts are the amounts required to make things like marijuana oil or tinctures. Ive had cancer. Im also a nurse. And I am against these laws!
I strongly believe that people who have a prescription to use medical marijuana should have the right to have marijuana seeds of their own choice, the right to grow the strain of marijuana that they want to grow, the right to grow a few mother plants, the right to have 6 plants in vegetative growth, and the right to grow 6 plants in flowering. I would also put it to you that medical marijuana citizens of Canada also are allowed to have in their possession several pounds of wet marijuana in their home and several pounds of dried marijuana as well. These should be the minimum amounts for just smoking use. If a person has a different way of using medical marijuana such as through teas or through marijuana tinctures or oil, then they should quite rightly be allowed to grow a much higher volume of plants in both vegetative and flower stages. That must be put back into the new regulations. I guarantee that you will face court challenges if you dont!
There are many ways to grow a plant and get different yields. If you are so worried about heat and electricity, then I can suggest you make it so that people who grow can only use LED lighting, which has minimal heat if any, and very low electricity usage. If you are worried about increased electricity use then I would strongly urge you for home owners to be allowed to use non traditional wind generators as well as solar panels or solar cells in paint in order to create home grown current.
Your office has totally dropped the ball when it comes to bringing our economy back up to where we dont have to worry. If you had contacted growers like you say you have, then you would have heard them say let us become the commercial producers. Your requirements will cost people millions of dollars but you already know that. So essentially what you have done is erased the chances for small business to thrive and youve wiped them out with the wave of your hated magic wand. Now you have the big corporate fellows who have the money coming in and saying well be glad to run this empire. Again, you havent thought this through. Here is a chance the biggest opportunity that you will ever have to create a thriving small business industry that wont have an 80-90% failure rate. These small businesses these designated growers, will be around for a very long time and they will employ people. Lots of people. Allowing people to grow in their homes for themselves as well as for others creates more small business in this country than anything else currently promoted by the government. The last time I checked we were desperate to create more employers as well as jobs. If anything, you should allow personal growers to grow for 4 people with permits and if two people are designated growers at the same address, Id suggest allowing them to grow for a max of 8 people. This is small business remember. Let the whole country benefit!
I bet your office isnt even aware of who the best trimmers are in Canada. Who are the people that manicure the buds? Theyre usually unemployed single mothers. Why? Its because they have smaller hands and they can manicure a bud better than men because of that. They typically earn $20-25 an hour and work 8-14 hours a day come harvest time.
Let me mention another issue. The medical marijuana that Health Canada sells is consistently of poor quality to consumers. Of course youre not making money from it. If you walk into a restaurant and see the menu only has one item on it when you know there are over 4000 other items that should be on there, would you buy whats offered? Some might but most wont. Your office has not listened to the consumer once again. What you should have been doing is hiring many designated growers/producers to supply you with a variety of strains that are the most popular. Then you would have started to make money. Having one grower working down in an abandoned mine was idiotic at best.
Quite frankly your new regulations are not designed for the consumer of medical marijuana. They are designed for enforcement. The grapevine is full of chatter about lawsuits and I hope they do challenge your new regulations because they will raise the price when many people are on limited incomes. Further, you dont allow for people to use more medical marijuana for different methods of use. Personally I want to ingest it as well as use it as a cancer preventative in the form of marijuana oil and that means 40-60 grams a day roughly. How can I afford to pay for that amount with your new regulations? I should be allowed to grow for myself or find a designated grower who will do it for me at a fraction of the $8 a gram that you are suggesting.
The only thing that is on the right track is that you are going to allow nurse practitioners to write prescriptions. You already know that doctors and specialists hate being a part of the MMAR program. However, I put it to your office that you need to allow for marijuana to be produced so it can be researched for its benefits and that marijuana is a specialty occupation. Its not a pill. Its a living breathing plant that has numerous benefits that have been used for thousands of years. How long has modern white mans medicine been around? A few hundred years at most is my answer. The modern health care system hasnt got the sole right to issue it out.
My suggestion therefore is that you expand your list of who can prescribe medical marijuana. Youre focusing too much on that word medical. Before it was classified with that term it was used by healers in many cultures for many thousands of years. It is my position that Doctors of Chinese Medicine, Doctors in Botany, Doctors of Nursing (PH.D on the subject of marijuana), and Doctors of Naturopathic medicine also be allowed to write out scripts for this plant. Prepare yourself, people might write in with more suggestions that what Ive listed here.
Overall I believe that you have a one sided set of regulations here, which make it so much harder and more expensive for consumers to access. We are going backwards in time when compared to Washington State and Colorado. My hope is that you will be challenged in court and made to make these changes and/or the Federal Election happens and new leadership replaces your office with people that are better qualified and who have an in depth knowledgebase about this plant. You might also want to think about creating specialty post-graduate programs at universities where more people can study and gain knowledge about what this plant can do for people. Its obvious to myself and to many others that your office does not know what it should know in order for it to be the governing body for it. Finally, I have not mentioned dispensaries yet but they also need to be allowed to sell medical marijuana.
Have a good and thank you for fixing up the terrible regulations so that they are more consumer friendly.
Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate,

Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch,

Health Canada,
Address Locator: AL3503D
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K9
Re: Feedback on the new Medical Marijuana rules:
To the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulatory Reform Office:
I am writing to you today to provide my feedback and ask you to seriously rethink the new plans that you have for medical marijuana. Why? In my opinion its because Health Canada still hasnt got things right for the citizens of Canada. These new laws do not help the citizens that need this medicine.
To start with, many other medical users and myself have noticed that the people you have consulted are the people that are generally paid by either the Provincial or Federal Government. Its obvious that you havent really made the effort to contact the consumer at any level that would prove you to be seriously interested in how they felt about your new rules. You have the police super happy and you have the fire department smiling. But you certainly have the population in an uproar and they are the end users of the program that you have designed.
I see many court cases being filed against Health Canada because of this. The Supreme court has told everyone in this country including your department, that if a citizen needs medical marijuana they are allowed to have access to it. Your new regulations complicate this ruling in my opinion.
It makes no sense to the citizen allowed to use medical marijuana that you would no longer allow people to grow it. If people need higher amounts because they prefer not to smoke it and you say to them that they have to pay $8 a gram from either a commercial grower or a pharmacy that makes no sense to me either. Youre going to ask a pensioner to pay the big bucks for the higher prescriptions? Are you out of your minds? It might make sense to your government colleagues but it doesnt to the people you are supposed to be designing the system for. Just to remind you, thats the citizens not the police or the fire department!
You do not allow people to convert medical marijuana into marijuana oil and yet there is anecdotal evidence that this treatment kills cancer cells! Granted, research has to be done so why are you not allowing people to get access to higher amounts for this purpose? The cure for cancer is at your doorstep and you ignore it because of big business? If thats the honest truth then you shouldnt be in power and you shouldnt be collecting a government paycheck. The bottom line is that once you have cancer or your spouse or your kids have cancer you will do everything in your power to stop it from killing the person or the animal that you love. For the longest while Health Canada has been moaning about the higher dosages saying the excess all goes to the black market. I put it to you that these amounts are the amounts required to make things like marijuana oil or tinctures. Ive had cancer. Im also a nurse. And I am against these laws!
I strongly believe that people who have a prescription to use medical marijuana should have the right to have marijuana seeds of their own choice, the right to grow the strain of marijuana that they want to grow, the right to grow a few mother plants, the right to have 6 plants in vegetative growth, and the right to grow 6 plants in flowering. I would also put it to you that medical marijuana citizens of Canada also are allowed to have in their possession several pounds of wet marijuana in their home and several pounds of dried marijuana as well. These should be the minimum amounts for just smoking use. If a person has a different way of using medical marijuana such as through teas or through marijuana tinctures or oil, then they should quite rightly be allowed to grow a much higher volume of plants in both vegetative and flower stages. That must be put back into the new regulations. I guarantee that you will face court challenges if you dont!
There are many ways to grow a plant and get different yields. If you are so worried about heat and electricity, then I can suggest you make it so that people who grow can only use LED lighting, which has minimal heat if any, and very low electricity usage. If you are worried about increased electricity use then I would strongly urge you for home owners to be allowed to use non traditional wind generators as well as solar panels or solar cells in paint in order to create home grown current.
Your office has totally dropped the ball when it comes to bringing our economy back up to where we dont have to worry. If you had contacted growers like you say you have, then you would have heard them say let us become the commercial producers. Your requirements will cost people millions of dollars but you already know that. So essentially what you have done is erased the chances for small business to thrive and youve wiped them out with the wave of your hated magic wand. Now you have the big corporate fellows who have the money coming in and saying well be glad to run this empire. Again, you havent thought this through. Here is a chance the biggest opportunity that you will ever have to create a thriving small business industry that wont have an 80-90% failure rate. These small businesses these designated growers, will be around for a very long time and they will employ people. Lots of people. Allowing people to grow in their homes for themselves as well as for others creates more small business in this country than anything else currently promoted by the government. The last time I checked we were desperate to create more employers as well as jobs. If anything, you should allow personal growers to grow for 4 people with permits and if two people are designated growers at the same address, Id suggest allowing them to grow for a max of 8 people. This is small business remember. Let the whole country benefit!
I bet your office isnt even aware of who the best trimmers are in Canada. Who are the people that manicure the buds? Theyre usually unemployed single mothers. Why? Its because they have smaller hands and they can manicure a bud better than men because of that. They typically earn $20-25 an hour and work 8-14 hours a day come harvest time.
Let me mention another issue. The medical marijuana that Health Canada sells is consistently of poor quality to consumers. Of course youre not making money from it. If you walk into a restaurant and see the menu only has one item on it when you know there are over 4000 other items that should be on there, would you buy whats offered? Some might but most wont. Your office has not listened to the consumer once again. What you should have been doing is hiring many designated growers/producers to supply you with a variety of strains that are the most popular. Then you would have started to make money. Having one grower working down in an abandoned mine was idiotic at best.
Quite frankly your new regulations are not designed for the consumer of medical marijuana. They are designed for enforcement. The grapevine is full of chatter about lawsuits and I hope they do challenge your new regulations because they will raise the price when many people are on limited incomes. Further, you dont allow for people to use more medical marijuana for different methods of use. Personally I want to ingest it as well as use it as a cancer preventative in the form of marijuana oil and that means 40-60 grams a day roughly. How can I afford to pay for that amount with your new regulations? I should be allowed to grow for myself or find a designated grower who will do it for me at a fraction of the $8 a gram that you are suggesting.
The only thing that is on the right track is that you are going to allow nurse practitioners to write prescriptions. You already know that doctors and specialists hate being a part of the MMAR program. However, I put it to your office that you need to allow for marijuana to be produced so it can be researched for its benefits and that marijuana is a specialty occupation. Its not a pill. Its a living breathing plant that has numerous benefits that have been used for thousands of years. How long has modern white mans medicine been around? A few hundred years at most is my answer. The modern health care system hasnt got the sole right to issue it out.
My suggestion therefore is that you expand your list of who can prescribe medical marijuana. Youre focusing too much on that word medical. Before it was classified with that term it was used by healers in many cultures for many thousands of years. It is my position that Doctors of Chinese Medicine, Doctors in Botany, Doctors of Nursing (PH.D on the subject of marijuana), and Doctors of Naturopathic medicine also be allowed to write out scripts for this plant. Prepare yourself, people might write in with more suggestions that what Ive listed here.
Overall I believe that you have a one sided set of regulations here, which make it so much harder and more expensive for consumers to access. We are going backwards in time when compared to Washington State and Colorado. My hope is that you will be challenged in court and made to make these changes and/or the Federal Election happens and new leadership replaces your office with people that are better qualified and who have an in depth knowledgebase about this plant. You might also want to think about creating specialty post-graduate programs at universities where more people can study and gain knowledge about what this plant can do for people. Its obvious to myself and to many others that your office does not know what it should know in order for it to be the governing body for it. Finally, I have not mentioned dispensaries yet but they also need to be allowed to sell medical marijuana.
Have a good and thank you for fixing up the terrible regulations so that they are more consumer friendly.
