Marijuana Delays Complaints Continue
Monday October 4 2010
Health Canada’s delays in processing medical marijuana licenses are completely unacceptable, according to a prominent MP and a former police officer who now runs a grow-op collective for licensed growers and users of the Canadian drug.
Cheryl MacLellan, former police officer, says that her first license took just six weeks to be granted from Health Canada, but that that wait has now increased to six or seven months – for licenses that then only last for a year. “That is unacceptable,” MacLellan says forcefully. “You can get an oxycontin prescription, go right down to (Canadian pharmacist) Shoppers and pick it up.”
MacLellan is outraged that people who are still waiting for their licenses can then become the target of police through no fault of their own. She should know – she has herself had her own co-op raided, with officers kicking in the door, an experience she would rather not go through again. “We end up growing with expired permits,” she admits.
One of the co-op’s members, Marie Tripp, who suffers from chronic fatigue, fibro myalgia and osteoarthritis, says she has filed for an amendment after her doctor doubled her prescription for the Canadian drug, but is dreading how long the permit will take to come through. “They’re putting people in jeapordy,” she points out. “Our licenses are our safety and security.”
Liberal health critic Ujjal Dosanjh has also made it a political issue, noting that the government is “making criminals out of patients who need medical help. I just think it’s absolutely unacceptable”. The idea of being able to get a prescription for marijuana and heading off to a local Canadian pharmacist to pick it up in five minutes still seems like an awful long way away from reality.
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