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Medical marijuana patients will now be able to consume marijuana — and not just smoke it — as well as use other extracts and derivatives, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled today.
The unanimous ruling against the federal government expands the definition of medical marijuana beyond the "dried" form.
The country's highest court found the current restriction to dried marijuana violates the right to liberty and security "in a manner that is arbitrary and hence is not in accord with the principles of fundamental justice."
Restricting medical access to marijuana to a dried form has now been declared "null and void" — Sections 4 and 5 of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act, which prohibits possession of non-dried forms of cannabis, will no longer be in effect.
The decision upholds earlier rulings by lower courts in British Columbia that said they went against a person's right to consume medical marijuana in the form they choose.
This means that legal patients can consume cannabis in whatever form they choose. Dried flowers, hash, dabs, cookies, lozenges, etc. Previously a patient found in possession of cookies would likely have been charged with possession for the purposes of trafficking (this has occurred). It also gets rid of a noxious loophole that the feds/police used, which was to charge someone with the weight of the edibles as cannabis.
Tom
The unanimous ruling against the federal government expands the definition of medical marijuana beyond the "dried" form.
The country's highest court found the current restriction to dried marijuana violates the right to liberty and security "in a manner that is arbitrary and hence is not in accord with the principles of fundamental justice."
Restricting medical access to marijuana to a dried form has now been declared "null and void" — Sections 4 and 5 of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act, which prohibits possession of non-dried forms of cannabis, will no longer be in effect.
The decision upholds earlier rulings by lower courts in British Columbia that said they went against a person's right to consume medical marijuana in the form they choose.
This means that legal patients can consume cannabis in whatever form they choose. Dried flowers, hash, dabs, cookies, lozenges, etc. Previously a patient found in possession of cookies would likely have been charged with possession for the purposes of trafficking (this has occurred). It also gets rid of a noxious loophole that the feds/police used, which was to charge someone with the weight of the edibles as cannabis.
Tom
