Pubdate: Mon, 14 Apr 2014
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Douglas Quan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MOUNTIES SEIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The two Ontario-bound shipments of medical-marijuana products seized 
by B.C. Mounties a couple of weeks ago contained unauthorized items, 
police said in a short statement posted on their website.

The companies doing the importing, Toronto-based Mettrum Ltd. and 
Smiths Falls, Ont.-based Tweed Marijuana Inc., have insisted that 
they received the necessary approvals from federal regulators to 
import the products, and Health Canada confirms this.

But the RCMP statement indicates that what was contained in the 
shipments seized at the Kelowna International Airport did not match 
what was outlined in the paperwork.

"The marijuana did not match what was authorized to be transferred, 
and was seized by the RCMP as it contravened Section 261 and 264 of 
the Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations," said the statement 
from Staff. Sgt. Duncan Pound.

Officials, for now, are declining to say what those prohibited items 
were. Under the rules, personal-production licence holders had until 
March 31 to sell marijuana plants or seeds - so-called "starting 
materials" - to the new, licensed commercial producers as long as 
they had Health Canada's approval for the transaction. The sale of 
dried or finished marijuana products was forbidden.

Mettrum and Tweed, two of 12 licensed producers competing in Canada's 
fledgling commercial medical marijuana industry, have their own 
growing facilities but said they decided to import some products from 
B.C. home growers to augment their supply. Both companies insist that 
everything they intended to import was in keeping with federal rules.

"I know what was in our shipment. It did not contain dried 
marijuana," Keelan Green, a Mettrum spokesman, said this weekend.

The rules are "crystal clear," said Tweed chairman Bruce Linton in an 
interview earlier in the week.

Both companies, however, say they have no intention of fighting to 
get the items back and have abandoned the purchases.

Both companies had previously suggested that the RCMP seizures might 
have been the result of "confusion" over the transition from the old 
regulatory regime, which allowed medical marijuana patients to grow 
small amounts of pot themselves or use designated growers, to the new 
regulatory regime, which restricts production to licensed commercial growers.

But the RCMP said in its statement that it "understands the 
parameters companies licensed by Health Canada need to follow to 
produce and ship marijuana for medical purposes."

The RCMP supports efforts to ensure that people authorized to access 
marijuana for medical reasons continue to have that access, the agency said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom