The Canadian Cannabis Act, Bill C-45, passed through Canada\u2019s Senate on June 7 by a vote of 56-to-30 with one abstention. Lawmakers still have to bring the House and Senate versions of the bill into conformity before it goes to Justin Trudeau\u2019s desk for his signature. Many legislators from the country\u2019s conservative wing are adamantly opposed, but they don\u2019t have the votes to block it. The prime minister\u2019s pledge to bring legal cannabis to Canada by July is set to become a reality.<\/p>\n
Anne McLellan, the former chair of the federal task-force that crafted the Cannabis Act, warned the private companies now preparing to expand from the medical to recreational market that they will have to play by the rules. Addressing industry leaders at a recent conference, she\u00a0warned<\/a>: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen this too often with big tobacco and big pharma\u2026 The rules are there\u2026 but they\u2019ll push right up against those rules and then make us take them to court, for example, to get clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n But as Canada moves towards a tightly controlled industry in government-licensed hands, it\u2019s worth asking: How did we get here?<\/p>\n Many are apt to forget today that when Canada took its first steps on the path to legalization, unveiling its national medical marijuana program in 2001, it was only because the federal government was forced to do so by pressure from below. It was the previous year\u2019s landmark decision in\u00a0Regina v. Parker, concerning Toronto-area epilepsy sufferer Terrance Parker, that forced the government\u2019s hand. Ontario\u2019s top court ruled that Canada\u2019s Narcotics Control Act violated the country\u2019s\u00a0Charter of Rights and Freedoms<\/a>\u00a0by forcing Parker chose between his freedom and his health.<\/p>\n It was in response to this ruling that\u00a0Health Canada<\/a>\u00a0established the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR). Under this program, patients could grow their own plants at home, designate someone to do it for them or purchase medical cannabis through Health Canada. A group of private companies were recognized as \u201cLicensed Producers\u201d to cultivate for the program, with Prairie Plant Systems of Saskatoon (today\u2019s\u00a0CanniMed<\/a>) as the flagship enterprise.<\/p>\n Controversy broke out again in 2013, when the Canadian government moved to establish the Licensed Producers as the sole source for legal medical cannabis. Health Canada overturned the MMAR, revoking the right of patients to grow their own or designate a grower. The new system, the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), mandated that patients purchase mail-order dried cannabis from the Licensed Producers.<\/p>\n But in April 2014, just days before the switch was to take effect, a case challenging the new regulations,\u00a0Allard v. Her Majesty the Queen, won an injunction halting the ban on patient cultivation. However, that case \u2014 won by Neil Allard, a neuro-immune disorder sufferer in British Columbia, in March 2016 \u2014\u00a0only applied<\/a>\u00a0to the 45,000 patients under the former MMAR system, who were allowed to keep growing their own. Anyone signing up with the new MMPR system would have to purchase from the LPs.<\/p>\n Attorneys for the government in the Allard case\u00a0argued openly<\/a>\u00a0that the Licensed Producers would \u201cneed a captive market to get established.\u201d<\/p>\n The turn toward general legalization came when Justin Trudeau launched his campaign for prime minister in 2015. At a September campaign stop in British Columbia, Trudeau announced: \u201cThe Liberal Party is committed to legalizing and regulating marijuana\u2026 We are going to get started on that right away.\u201d<\/p>\n Now Trudeau is making good on that promise. Things may open up in terms of supply \u2014 but not everywhere. Questions, such as whether to allow home cultivation, are being left up to the provinces, creating a\u00a0regulation patchwork<\/a>\u00a0across the country. The\u00a0power of Canada\u2019s First Nations to regulate cannabis<\/a>\u00a0on their reserves is still not defined and is a source of more contention. But the LPs are certainly poised to dominate the \u201crecreational\u201d market.<\/p>\n In ominous news for those hoping for greater elbow room tor independent producers and vendors under the new system, Toronto in recent months has seen a\u00a0vigorous crackdown<\/a>\u00a0on dispensaries that had been operating in a legal \u201d\u00a0gray zone\u201d \u2014 technically illegal but tolerated.<\/p>\n Veteran Canadian activist David Malmo-Levine actually challenged cannabis prohibition in the courts in 2003\u2014 and won, at first. A British Columbia court ruled in his favor in\u00a0Regina v. Malmo-Levine. In December of that year, however, the ruling was overturned by Canada\u2019s Supreme Court. Malmo-Levine is watching the new system that Canada is crafting with a critical eye.<\/p>\n Malmo-Levine told Cannabis Now: \u201cEstimates of the \u2018\u00a0gray market\u2019 is north of six billion \u2014 the legal market is expected to do less than a third of that in its first year. How those ratios change will depend upon whether or not the gray\u00a0market can convince judges that they deserve to be legalized, or whether the LPs succeed in creating the captive market they\u2019ve admitted to wanting the government to create for them.\u201d<\/p>\n The cannabis legalization that is coming to Canada is the fruit of long activist efforts. And such efforts will clearly still be needed to assure that legal cannabis unfolds with a sense of equity.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you support Canada\u2019s legal cannabis regulations?<\/p>\n The post Canada\u2019s Contentious Path to Cannabis Legalization<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Cannabis Act, Bill C-45, passed through Canada\u2019s Senate on June 7 by a vote of 56-to-30 with one abstention. Lawmakers still have to bring the House and Senate versions of the bill into conformity before it goes to Justin Trudeau\u2019s desk for his signature. Many legislators from theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2261,34,4589,50,2628,904,846,149,320,1767,4050],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26953,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26952\/revisions\/26953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Activist Pressure Made This Possible<\/h4>\n
The Rise of Licensed Producers<\/h4>\n
Contradictions of Canada\u2019s New Cannabis Order<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Canada\u2019s Contentious Path to Cannabis Legalization<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"