The Liberal government’s solution to allow medical patients the ability to grow their own cannabis in the new ACMPR by making licensed producers the source for all seeds and growing material is unlikely to be enforced said lawyer Kirk Tousaw.
Under the new system, created due to a court order that found the previous MMPR regime in violation of patient rights, Canadians once again have the ability to grow at home, but the government wants them only to buy from one of their Health Canada sanctioned cannabis producers.
“The ACMPR permit newly registered persons to register with any of the producers licensed by Health Canada using a copy of their Health Canada registration certificate to obtain starting materials (seeds or plants) for production, and/or an interim supply of fresh or dried marijuana or cannabis oil while their own production is established,” new guidelines state.
Tousaw said that under the first medical cannabis program in place, the MMAR, patients were required to obtain seeds only from Prairie Plant Systems Inc., the then only existing medical cannabis producer approved by Health Canada.
Tousaw said during the MMAR days, he saw no instances of this rule being enforced and doesn’t expect that to change now that licensed producers are the only allowed source for plants.
“The buyer in a transaction is not trafficking and if you are legal to possess and grow cannabis, I don’t see what crime you are committing by purchasing from seed banks or other growers,” Tousaw wrote. “So this rule, too, will almost certainly be ignored and is unenforceable.”