Health Canada’s failures in the medical regime are evident. And recreational cannabis legalization won’t fare any better. Just look at the proposed “1-metre” rule for home-growing and its many flaws.

If there’s an Idiot’s Guide to Growing Cannabis, I suggest sending a bunch of copies to politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa.

Growing cannabis from seed requires culling the male plants. And unless I’m mistaken, it’s pretty much impossible to tell the difference between male and female seedlings until after they sprout, which is about one month.

Does Ottawa expect us to limit our seedlings to 4 plants? To buy expensive and sub par “feminized” seeds from their approved licensed producers (LPs)? To just play by the rules and hope for the best?

That is, remain ignorant about whether one is growing male or female plants until after they sprout?

What happens if my legal 4 seedlings turn out to be all males? According to the rules, I’d have to start all over again, weeks after planting.

I guess I’ll have to buy an LP starter kit. It’s already happening in the medical regime: LPs are selling live plants, essentially clones at $20 each, plus shipping and taxes.

Home-growing, like other aspects of legalization, is still a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

If I start off with 10 or more seedlings, with every intention of culling back to four females, I could face fines up to $5000 and between 6 months and 14 years in jail.

So much for legalization.

Home-growing could be such a regulatory nightmare that it’ll incentive Canadians to purchase clones from LPs.

Of course, I’m not going to do that, nor do I imagine most of the readers of this blog will find themselves in that position. But that’s the path we’re being led down.

The devil is always in the details. Especially with a government that has been reluctant to follow through on its legalization promise.

Of course, Canadians can look to Oregon, a legal state with a four-plant limit. They get around this rule by growing them large.

But since Canada’s legalization has a 1-metre height restriction, circumventing the rules may be a little more tricky.

But one can cultivate a cannabis plant that extends left and right but only 1-metre high. Perhaps we’ll perfect the art of the cannabis bonsai.

There will always be ways around the 1-metre rule.

For example, you could just grow it anyway, government bureaucracy be damned. Growing, consuming and selling cannabis has been illegal up until now and that hasn’t stopped anyone.