Pubdate: Fri, 25 Mar 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Mike Hager
Page: A4

OTTAWA WON'T APPEAL COURT RULING ON MEDICAL POT

Ottawa has decided not to appeal a Federal Court ruling that struck 
down a ban on patients growing their own medical marijuana, and 
instead will rewrite its rules by the end of the summer to make 
cannabis more affordable and accessible to patients.

Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters outside Parliament on 
Thursday - the deadline for appealing last month's landmark ruling - 
that the government will meet the Aug. 24 deadline set by the court 
to update its regulations.

"The Federal Court's concern was that, under the current regulations, 
medical marijuana was not appropriately affordable and accessible to 
Canadians, and so those are the parts of the regulations that we are 
required to address," Dr. Philpott said. "At this point, I am not 
going to speculate as to what kind of regulations will be put in 
place or how the current regulations will be amended, but certainly 
we will take into respect every recommendation of the court decision."

The former Conservative government overhauled the medical marijuana 
system in 2014, establishing a network of large commercial growers 
that ship their products directly to customers while prohibiting 
patients from growing at home - something that had been allowed under 
the previous rules.

Four patients in British Columbia challenged the regulations in 
Federal Court, and last month a judge struck them down and gave the 
government six months to craft a solution.

The minister's announcement comes as the Liberal government is 
preparing a task force to craft rules around the legal sale of 
recreational pot, which could take up to two years to become law.

Dr. Philpott would not elaborate on whether these changes will allow 
for storefront sales of medical marijuana or enshrine patients' right 
to grow their own marijuana.

Last month's ruling found the current system to be "overbroad and 
arbitrary" because it effectively forced patients who were previously 
allowed to produce their own marijuana to choose between their 
medicine and jail. "I agree that the plaintiffs have, on a balance of 
probabilities, demonstrated that cannabis can be produced safely and 
securely with limited risk to public safety and consistently with the 
promotion of public health," Justice Michael Phelan wrote.

During the court proceedings, plaintiff Shawn Davey, a Mission, B. 
C., man on disability who smokes and eats up to 25 grams of cannabis 
products a day, told the judge that he spent roughly $ 830 a month 
growing 750 grams that he makes into edible products to treat chronic 
nerve pain he suffers from an old motorcycle accident. At about $ 
1.10 a gram to produce his own medicine, Mr. Davey said he could not 
afford to pay for cannabis provided by the federal system, which 
charges on average $ 8.14 a gram, according to Health Canada data 
from December.

John Conroy, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case, said he 
hopes Thursday's announcement signals a turning point in the way the 
government regulates the stigmatized drug. "When the [ previous 
medical marijuana system] came in, we took 10 years litigating the 
restrictions to make them constitutional and we were mostly 
successful," he said.

Mr. Conroy said he will be back in Federal Court on April 22 asking 
Justice Phelan to expand an ongoing injunction so that all of the 
roughly 38,000 patients licensed under the old rules are allowed to 
produce their own medicine until Health Canada crafts new regulations.

He said he will also be asking the judge to allow those same patients 
to possess edible forms of cannabis, as well as to move their 
production sites after events such as landslides or kitchen fires 
stop them from growing at home.

After the ruling, Mr. Conroy promised that the next fight between 
cannabis activists and Ottawa will be over the 200 to 300 illegal pot 
shops that first cropped up in B. C. several years ago and now dot 
the country. He said the judge recognized that the ongoing explosion 
of these dispensaries is a result of patients "voting with their 
feet" to avoid the current mail-order system regulated by Health Canada.

- - With a report from Daniel Leblanc in Ottawa
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom