Canada weighs tighter rules for grow-your-own pot producers

Reuters 9 March 2021
Canada on Monday launched a public consultation seeking to tighten rules for individuals who are allowed to grow their own medical cannabis, in an effort to clamp down on pot seeping into black markets.

In a draft guidance issued for the consultation, Health Canada highlighted recent police raids and arrests at production sites where people were using licenses to “cover and support large-scale illegal production and sale”.

The move comes as Canada tries to fix its ailing pot market, where illegal producers sell more annually than hundreds of licensed cultivators, even over two years after the country became the first major nation to legalize weed in 2018.

Households spent more than C$3.1 billion ($2.45 billion) buying non-medical pot from illicit channels last year versus C$2.9 billion of legal purchases, according to Statistics Canada data.

“Abuse of the medical purposes framework undermines the integrity of the system that many patients and health care practitioners rely on to access cannabis to address their medical needs,” Health Canada said in the draft document.

Reuters first reported the news earlier on Monday.

The draft guidance for the first time sets out factors that the regulator may consider in refusing or revoking a registration for “personal production”. Factors include authorization of unjustified amounts and “criminal activity and/or diversion of cannabis”. (Graphic: Black markets plague Canadian cannabis, )
READ MORE: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-cannabis-exclusive-idUSKBN2B017Q