In the cannabis industry, there is debate about the issue of home grow. It served as the cornerstone for the global commercialization of the cannabis market.
As reform occurs, it is also a right that is being defined. However, due to worries about public safety and the need to stop the underground market, Canadian authorities are considering reevaluating the entire concept.
The ability of patients in Canada to grow cannabis for personal use has previously been questioned. When a man sued the government in 1998 over his right to grow marijuana at home, the business was born.
His right was acknowledged by the Ontario Superior Court, which also ordered Health Canada to establish a legal procedure to support it. The Canadian drug control laws were only made constitutionally valid with a functioning government medical program, following several more patient-led judicial challenges.
The Ontario Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that the federal program was unconstitutional due to its limitations and affirmed patients’ rights to obtain a safe, legal source of cannabis. By 2013, this legal framework had allowed Licensed Producers (LPs) to register as corporations and raise capital through the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Since then, these LPs have grown to become some of the most well-known cannabis businesses in the world. Patients in Canada successfully defended their right to home growth in court in 2016.
Just over nine months later, in 2017, Germany removed the patients’ right to home growth with the passing of a new law requiring health insurers to pay for the cost of the medication.
However, issues with unsafe and unsecured grow facilities, product leakage into the black market, and the regulatory framework that Health Canada has demanded are frequently not being met. In Canada, the topic of how to effectively control the program for both individuals and patient collectives has come up once more, along with how to address worries about public safety and spillover into the black market.
A clause in the proposed legislation that Health Canada is now reviewing gives the organization the authority to deny or revoke specific permits in certain situations. These include non-compliant grow areas, fraudulently obtained medical certifications that don’t fulfill standards, and patient deaths because licenses cannot be transferred.
Concern has been expressed by activists who feel it takes away their right to cultivate cannabis. Growing cannabis is not easy, and not every patient can do so for individual or communal use.
Accidents happen in even big, publicly supported businesses. Additionally, it is sometimes forgotten in the discussion of cannabis production that proponents at the patient level need much higher doses than recreational users.
