2010 News Archive

The City of Chilliwack can't get Health Canada to respond to questions about the federal medical marijuana program so they'll try the local MP.

According to Coun. Chuck Stam, the mayor tried to arrange a meeting with the Minister of Health in the spring, leading up to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting "to no avail."

Cedar resident says police dismantled his medicinal pot operation and cut off his hydro... ...Hodgkinson was licensed to grow up to 49 pot plants, but his licence expired in August, despite the fact that he applied for its renewal eight weeks before its expiry date, as stipulated by Health Canada.

A call to Health Canada earlier this week, asking why the federal agency is so far behind in renewing the licences of those they permit to grow medicinal marijuana, has me scratching my head.

...Chad Clelland, Director of Online and Community Relations for the website Medicalmarijuana.ca, has seen delays of eight to 10 months. While Health Canada may say they are getting better in terms of processing, he believes a significant change can be made when it comes to renewals.

The taxman wants to make sure he scores off Adrienne Baker-Hick’s pot purchases.

The Warkworth woman didn’t expect to get hit for nearly $100 of HST monthly when buying her usual $750 shipments of medical marijuana [from Health Canada].

Dave Napora was born with a degenerative genetic disease that causes him extreme pain and prolonged depression.

He says marijuana is the best medicine he’s ever tried because it takes away the pain, but he is in a struggle with Health Canada to get a medical marijuana license.

Producing her own show on YouTube titled Michelle’s Medicinal Marijuana, distributing cannabis education packages to those who were in need and being a director for Treating Yourself magazine, she was a tenacious proselytizer for the plant and its therapeutic properties.

It has been a stressful eight months for Jeff McKay as he waits for a Health Canada permit allowing him to possess and use an additional seven grams of marijuana to alleviate symptoms of HIV and Hepatitis C.

The Falmouth, Hants County, woman, who is prescribed medical marijuana for the pain caused by multiple sclerosis, says government red tape has made it impossible to get the drug when she needs it.

CBC.ca
Smoking marijuana does help relieve a certain amount of pain, a small but well-designed Canadian study has found.

Article is accompanied by 3 excellent, informative videos.

CBC.ca
Patients seeking to use medical marijuana are being forced to wait as long as six months by Health Canada because a backlog of permit applications, a B.C. doctor says.

Now, in a move considered a first in Canada, the municipality is set to add yet another activity banned within its borders – the production of marijuana for medical purposes.

“We are just saying ‘no’,” Pitt Meadows’ veteran mayor Don MacLean said Monday.

Chilliwack is looking at a bylaw to stop licenced medical marijuana growers from growing pot for other licence-holders, "similar" to one introduced recently in Pitt Meadows.

Matt Young used to bust kids for smoking pot as a security officer in Calgary, but now it's Young who's trying to find a way to smoke marijuana in peace.

That search almost cost him his life.

Growers say they live in fear of break-ins, some say they're discriminated against by police who still view their grow-ops with an air of suspicion and struggle against the insurance industry, which wants absolutely nothing to do with the risks.

"We're still treated as criminals," says Jeff Lundstrom, the owner of Skunk Funk, a head shop that he says has become the local headquarters for the medical marijuana community.

OTTAWA - Health Canada would like to provide information regarding the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) as they relate to organizations such as "compassion clubs" or "cannabis dispensaries".

National Post
"As long as people are still being harassed and jailed for voluntary acts between consenting adults, we must raise our voices in protest."

A spokesman for the website MedicalMarijuana.ca, an online resource that aims to bring together patients and doctors, said he expects the number of pot prescriptions to grow.

"It takes patients going in to say, 'I use marijuana, and this is what works best for me,' " he said. "It's up to the doctors to decide if they're going to help them use it legally or not."

Medical marijuana is legal in Canada, but more Canadians are acquiring it through illegal channels.

The Toronto Star
An Ontario teenager has the blessings of his parents - and his doctor - to smoke marijuana. Storm Peschel uses it to cope with pain, and believes the Health Canada program for medicinal marijuana could be improved.

With comments from our Director of Online and Community Relations, Chad Clelland.

The Montreal Gazette
Advocates of medical marijuana are hailing a landmark Nova Scotia court ruling, hoping it leads the way to taxpayer-funded pot supplies for low-income patients across Canada.

The New York Times
“There’s one thing that helps my Tourette’s more than anything, and it’s marijuana,” says Louis Centanni, the 24-year-old actor and comedian featured in Patient Voices: Tourette’s Syndrome.

CBC.ca
The provincial Department of Community Services has been ordered to pay for the medical marijuana used by a woman on income assistance.

The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia ruling was released Wednesday.

National Post
A provocative new report from a B.C. HIV-research agency, however, suggests that throwing more police resources at the problem will only make the bloodshed worse, not bring peace to the streets.

Globe and Mail
An online poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion found that only two-in-five Canadians or 40 per cent agreed with his statement that if drugs were legalized “these would never be respectable businesses run by respectable people.”

With comments from our own Director of Online and Community Relations, Chad Clelland.

"Justice Minister Robert Nicholson said Wednesday the government’s medical marijuana regulations are under review after the UN’s drugs watchdog warned Canada needs to tighten up the system."

The state-funded Center for Medical Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego has confirmed that pot is effective in reducing muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and pain caused by certain neurological injuries or illnesses, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Across the country, formerly laid-back marijuana growers now live in fear of armed thieves, and smugglers take huge risks to cross the beefed up American border. (Watch Online)

Teenagers who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic. That's the startling conclusion of some of the world's top schizophrenia experts, whose research is featured in this new documentary. (Watch Online)

With comments from our Director of Online and Community Relations, Chad Clelland.

Right now she lives in limbo, largely shutting herself in at home alone with a federal medical marijuana card that expired at the beginning of December, with no explanation why her renewed exemption hasn't arrived. And with fears about the law.

Politicians enjoy beating their chests about "zero tolerance".

On drugs. Binge drinking. Bullying. Sexual harassment. But what about zero tolerance for suffering?

Medical marijuana may be legal, but the way some approved Canadian growers are producing their pot is not, say fire chiefs in the country's two most prolific weed-producing provinces.

You know how it would go if you were into your dealer for five grand. Here's what happens when your dealer is the Government of Canada.