No Nova Scotia firms licensed yet
A feisty exchange during Question period in the House Thursday, indicates confusion by some of what the implications might be from the recent BC court decision for medical marijuana producers in Canada.
There have been more than 1000 applications for Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) licenses from Health Canada with twenty-nine firms given the OK to date. Although there are no licensees yet in Nova Scotia, there are three or four firms which have made applications to Health Canada to grow and distribute medical marijuana. A Canadian subsidiary of US firm Vida Cannabis has purchased a former factory in Stellarton, but, after failing to obtain a license to date, is facing concern and complaints from investors about missing several important deadlines.
The Herbal Company (THC) in Truro has plans to build a 16,000 square foot facility with 22-foot high ceilings on 2.5 acres of land. Company president Evan Price says his firm is in the "later stages" of the application process.
AtlantiCann Medical Inc. has applied for a license for a facility in Shelburne at the former reform school there. AtlantiCann is headed by pharmacist Christine Halef, whose real estate developer father owns the Shelburne property.
South Shore-St. Margarets MP Bernadette Jordan recently told public officials in Shelburne that there was also a firm in Liverpool vying for a license, but her staff declined to reveal information about the firm.
Nova Scotia has the highest per-capita use of marijuana in Canada, at fifteen per cent.
With Tory MPs accusing the new government of seeking to give children access to marijuana, the NDP's Thomas Mulcair calling for immediate decriminalization of the drug and Bill Blair, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice saying a "hazy fog" had descended over Parliament.
Blair, a former Toronto police chief is the government's point man on the legalization file responded to an NDP question about the Federal Court ruling Wednesday that medical marijuana patients are entitled to grow their own marijuana, "Will the minister of justice respect this decision?"
Blair said that the ruling only concerned medical marijuana and is under review and the pot prohibition remains.
Murray Rankin, NDP justice critic, accused the Liberals of "sowing confusion left and right on marijuana" by offering no timeline on legalization.
Blair said the current approach of criminalizing people for possession is failing but the government is still going to continue the current approach indefinitely, according to Rankin.
"Why doesn't this government clear up the confusion and simply decriminalize personal possession of marijuana immediately?"
Kamal Khera, parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, said it was "vitally important" that those who need marijuana for medical use can have access. She reminded the House that the case in B.C. is not about recreational use of the drug.
When asked what the Liberal plan was to keep marijuana out of the hands of children, Blair said "The science and the evidence is overwhelmingly clear, that the best way to protect our kids, to get organized crime out of the business of selling marijuana in our communities, and to ensure a robust public health response, is through strict regulation."
When asked whether the court decision might affect the customer base for medical marijuana, AtlantiCann vice president Ed Cayer said via email, "We expect that the judicial decision will focus the government's efforts to better regulate the production for sale of medical marijuana and clarify the authority of individuals to produce medical marijuana for personal use."
Evan price, president of Truro-based THC told SCT in an interview that he anticipated no adverse market effects from the court ruling. "The demand for high-quality product is huge," he said, indicating that recently there were more than 50,000 users of medical marijuana and that there are more than 2000 additional registered prescriptions per month. Price said that he has spoken to several people in the department and with the chairman of the Standing Committee on Health and all have assured him that the court ruling will not impede the MMPR licensing application process.