Pothead
12-18-2007, 08:16 AM
The phrase “it’s not easy to be green” obviously doesn’t apply to Canada, or at least not when it comes to the country’s fondness for a little ganja.
According to the United Nations’ 2007 World Drug Report, around 17 percent of Canadians aged 15-64 are lighting up on a regular basis.
Our country actually ranks fifth in cannabis use worldwide, with only New Guinea, Micronesia Fed. State, Zambia and Ghana coming in higher.
Canadians, it seems, are also fond of cocaine, again cracking the Top 5 list in the drug report. Spain leads the way in this category, followed by the United States, England, Canada and Italy.
While we may be snorting and puffing a lot, the good news is we’re not doing a lot of popping and shooting. When it comes to statistics on opiates, amphetamines and ecstasy, Canada slides down the list considerably.
Drugs are big business in Canada. Cannabis grow op busts make the news more and more frequently. They are no longer confined to rural settings. These illegal operations are now cropping up in houses, apartments and in one case a few years back, a very visible former brewery.
Even the government is capitalizing on this lucrative industry, says one group. Canadians for Safe Access (CSA), a group that advocates for medicinal marijuana use, has accused the federal government of making a substantial profit on the backs of gravely ill or dying Canadians.
Through an Access to Information request, CSA discovered the government is marking up its legally grown pot by 1,500 percent. The homegrown pot is purchased through the government’s sole supplier, Prairie Plant Systems, which grows it in a mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man., for $328 per kilo (or about $9 per ounce) and resold to users at $150 an ounce. That works out to about $5,000 profit per kilo.
The government’s response is that the advocacy groups aren’t factoring in additional costs like distribution and testing, which drive its overall costs up.
Around 1,816 people in Canada are legally entitled to possess marijuana for medical purposes. Close to 1,300 are allowed to grow it themselves or on behalf of a person that uses for medical reasons, while the rest are supposed to be buying it from the government.
However, given the price of the federally supplied pot, and the fact it isn’t approved as a therapeutic drug, which means it’s not covered by any federal, provincial or private insurance plans, some licensed users simply can’t afford it.
To add insult to injury, some users are also saying the government’s pot just isn’t good quality either.
Health Canada is now owed somewhere in the range of $150,00 to $300,000 from consumers of its pot who can’t afford to pay for their purchase, according to published reports. People in arrears are being cut off from their supply and some accounts have gone to collection agencies.
To add further fuel to the fire, there is currently a constitutional challenge to the actual law underway in a B.C. Supreme Court.
Two members of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society were busted in a May 2004 raid on charges of running an illegal pot grow op. They claim they were operating a marijuana research and cultivation facility on behalf of the organization.
Their lawyers are arguing that Health Canada has failed to live up to its side of the pot supply business because it has restricted access to the program, placed arbitrary limits on production, and is “supplying an inadequate source of cannabis.”
The controversy surrounding the prices and distribution of the marijuana has prompted Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada, to start a preliminary audit into user fees for the program. The results of the audit will be sent Parliament once the audit is complete.
peace
According to the United Nations’ 2007 World Drug Report, around 17 percent of Canadians aged 15-64 are lighting up on a regular basis.
Our country actually ranks fifth in cannabis use worldwide, with only New Guinea, Micronesia Fed. State, Zambia and Ghana coming in higher.
Canadians, it seems, are also fond of cocaine, again cracking the Top 5 list in the drug report. Spain leads the way in this category, followed by the United States, England, Canada and Italy.
While we may be snorting and puffing a lot, the good news is we’re not doing a lot of popping and shooting. When it comes to statistics on opiates, amphetamines and ecstasy, Canada slides down the list considerably.
Drugs are big business in Canada. Cannabis grow op busts make the news more and more frequently. They are no longer confined to rural settings. These illegal operations are now cropping up in houses, apartments and in one case a few years back, a very visible former brewery.
Even the government is capitalizing on this lucrative industry, says one group. Canadians for Safe Access (CSA), a group that advocates for medicinal marijuana use, has accused the federal government of making a substantial profit on the backs of gravely ill or dying Canadians.
Through an Access to Information request, CSA discovered the government is marking up its legally grown pot by 1,500 percent. The homegrown pot is purchased through the government’s sole supplier, Prairie Plant Systems, which grows it in a mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man., for $328 per kilo (or about $9 per ounce) and resold to users at $150 an ounce. That works out to about $5,000 profit per kilo.
The government’s response is that the advocacy groups aren’t factoring in additional costs like distribution and testing, which drive its overall costs up.
Around 1,816 people in Canada are legally entitled to possess marijuana for medical purposes. Close to 1,300 are allowed to grow it themselves or on behalf of a person that uses for medical reasons, while the rest are supposed to be buying it from the government.
However, given the price of the federally supplied pot, and the fact it isn’t approved as a therapeutic drug, which means it’s not covered by any federal, provincial or private insurance plans, some licensed users simply can’t afford it.
To add insult to injury, some users are also saying the government’s pot just isn’t good quality either.
Health Canada is now owed somewhere in the range of $150,00 to $300,000 from consumers of its pot who can’t afford to pay for their purchase, according to published reports. People in arrears are being cut off from their supply and some accounts have gone to collection agencies.
To add further fuel to the fire, there is currently a constitutional challenge to the actual law underway in a B.C. Supreme Court.
Two members of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society were busted in a May 2004 raid on charges of running an illegal pot grow op. They claim they were operating a marijuana research and cultivation facility on behalf of the organization.
Their lawyers are arguing that Health Canada has failed to live up to its side of the pot supply business because it has restricted access to the program, placed arbitrary limits on production, and is “supplying an inadequate source of cannabis.”
The controversy surrounding the prices and distribution of the marijuana has prompted Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada, to start a preliminary audit into user fees for the program. The results of the audit will be sent Parliament once the audit is complete.
peace