In October 2018, Canada legalized cannabis for adult use nationwide. Under Canada\u2019s Cannabis Act, adults are allowed to cultivate up to four cannabis plants per household, either indoors or outdoors. Now, almost a year into legalization, more Canadians are taking advantage of this freedom \u2014 and are pushing to expand it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Take, for example, a nursery in the small town of Petitcodiac, New Brunswick that decided to hold a workshop on home cannabis cultivation last week. They were overwhelmed by the turnout and had to find a bigger venue at the last minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it,\u201d Bob Osborne, owner of Corn Hill Nursery, told the\u00a0Canadian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve obviously touched a nerve.\u201d<\/p>\n Another\u00a0CBC report<\/a>\u00a0on this year\u2019s home-growing trend quoted Alex Rea, owner of Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Homegrown Hydroponics<\/a>\u00a0chain, who boasted of booming sales \u2014 and the obvious reason for them.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the price-conscious consumer, if you\u2019re paying around $10 a gram for the varieties at the store, you might be only paying 50 cents per gram or less for a variety you grow yourself at home,\u201d Rea said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The report also happily raises the possibility that the Cannabis Act\u2019s four-plant limit may simply go unenforced. The enforcement effort is up to local police, and they don\u2019t seem particularly interested.<\/p>\n \u201cTo suggest that we\u2019re going to have teams of officers peeking in people\u2019s backyards to see if they\u2019re growing four plants, it\u2019s just not realistic,\u201d said Don Belanger of the Toronto Drug Squad.<\/p>\n However, there are two Canadian provinces that\u00a0banned home-growing cannabis altogether<\/a>: Quebec and Manitoba. Cannabis advocates are fighting the bans \u2014 and here, too, they\u2019ve seen progress.<\/p>\n A key victory for homegrown cannabis in Canada came on Sept. 3, when the provincial courts overturned Quebec\u2019s prohibition on home cultivation. Quebec Superior Court Justice Manon Lavoie ruled that the provincial prohibition infringed upon the jurisdiction of Canada\u2019s federal government by instituting the ban.<\/p>\n The decision means it is now legal to grow your four cannabis plants at home in Quebec, the\u00a0Canadian Press<\/a>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n The challenge was brought by Montreal resident Janick Murray-Hall \u2014 a bit of a professional prankster, and publisher of the satirical \u201cfake news\u201d website\u00a0World News Daily Report<\/a>. He\u00a0argued the ban violated the federal\u00a0Constitution Act of 1867<\/a>, which defines the limits of federal and provincial jurisdiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Quebec\u2019s provinicial law imposed a fine up to $750 (in Canadian dollars) for home cultivation \u2014 doubled on a second offense. The federal Cannabis Act states that provinces have the right to create \u201cadditional rules for growing cannabis at home, such as lowering the number of plants per residence.\u201d But it does not say that provinces can ban home cultivation outright.<\/p>\n Justice Lavoie found that, in fact, they cannot ban home growing. He wrote (translated from the French):\u00a0\u201cThe effect of the provincial provisions is a step backward, as though the new federal law aiming at accessibility and legalization of cannabis had never existed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nobody had actually been charged yet under the Quebec law.<\/p>\n Over in Manitoba, where there is a similar ban on home growing cannabis, only\u00a0one person has been charged<\/a>\u00a0for home cultivation since Manitoba\u2019s\u00a0Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Control Act<\/a>\u00a0came into effect last fall, a provincial spokesperson told\u00a0CBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cannabis advocates in Manitoba say that\u2019s one too many, of course. And with the ruling in Quebec as precedent, the CBC portrays it as a matter of time before a similar challenge is brought in Manitoba.<\/p>\n Manitoba\u2019s law actually imposes a $2,542 fine for home cultivation. When it was instated last year, legal experts warned that the province could be crossing the line by imposing such a hefty fine, according to the CBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n No other provinces have imposed stricter limits than the four plants allowed by federal law \u2014 Quebec and Manitoba stand alone in going beyond the federal Cannabis Act. And in Manitoba, home cultivation is still permitted for registered medical marijuana patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n The reversal in the Quebec courts may cause provincial leaders to rethink plans to further rein in the cannabis community.\u00a0Quebec\u2019s cannabis law was\u00a0passed in June 2018<\/a>\u00a0under the previous Liberal government. The new\u00a0Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec<\/a>\u00a0government has announced plans to\u00a0raise the legal age of consumption<\/a>\u00a0from 18 to 21. It also wants to\u00a0ban the sale of cannabis edibles<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before Canada legalized adult-use cannabis, consumers could often turn to \u201cgray market\u201d dispensaries to purchase their pot, particularly in Vancouver. But now, these dispensaries are fighting for their right to stay open as they face new enforcement and competition. Canada has licensed only a select few dozen Licensed Producers to sell recreational cannabis (and opened government-operated pot shops), pushing out these old-school, smaller retailers.<\/p>\n In May of this year, British Columbia\u2019s Supreme Court\u00a0rejected<\/a>\u00a0a bid from nine Vancouver dispensaries seeking to stay open. In a strange irony, Vancouver is\u00a0shutting down<\/a>\u00a0its long-tolerated but unlicensed cannabis dispensaries \u2014 even as British Columbia struggles to meet demand amid a dearth of licensed retail outlets.<\/p>\n David Malmo-Levine, a\u00a0longtime prominent Canadian cannabis advocate<\/a>\u00a0and Vancouver resident, told Cannabis Now he recently sold his share in the dispensary he co-founded, the ironically named\u00a0Stressed and Depressed<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 citing the exorbitant fees imposed by the city government. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI had to sell my dispensary because I couldn\u2019t come up with the $35,000 [Canadian dollars] per year,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a rich man\u2019s game, now.\u201d<\/p>\n Without mom-and-pop licensed dispensaries to turn to, home grow is even more relevant for Canadians looking to avoid corporate cannabis.<\/p>\n TELL US,\u00a0<\/strong>have you grown cannabis at home?<\/p>\n The post Home Growers Take on Corporate Cannabis in Canada<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In October 2018, Canada legalized cannabis for adult use nationwide. Under Canada\u2019s Cannabis Act, adults are allowed to cultivate up to four cannabis plants per household, either indoors or outdoors. Now, almost a year into legalization, more Canadians are taking advantage of this freedom \u2014 and are pushing to expandContinue 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":[34,50,2238,4314,5,1613,687],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38205"}],"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=38205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38206,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38205\/revisions\/38206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Judge Rules for Home Grow in Quebec<\/h4>\n
Manitoba\u2019s Ban Might Topple Next<\/h4>\n
Homegrow Increasingly Important as \u2018Gray Market\u2019 Dispensaries Squeezed Out<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Home Growers Take on Corporate Cannabis in Canada<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"