Pubdate: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 Source: Maple Ridge Times (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc Contact: http://www.mrtimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1372 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." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.