Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610CKTB | Authorized for Abuse: The Math Behind Canada’s Medical Cannabis “Loophole”

Transcript

610CKTB | Authorized for Abuse: The Math Behind Canada’s Medical Cannabis “Loophole” · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: But first the future we like to call high Witness News.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: John led Key is an advocate for the legal cannabis
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: industry in Canada, and he joins us again this morning.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Good morning, John, Good morning, Jean Ah. You just recently
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: wrote a piece and fetch and release about what's being
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: called the paper workshield in Canada's medical cannabis system. So,
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  Speaker 1: for the average person listening who may not even understand
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Canada's medical cannabis system, what exactly is this loophole? And
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: how are illicit growers using federal law to protect themselves
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  Speaker 1: from local police.
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  Speaker 2: So the best example would probably be myself, Jane. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I have a license for three grams per day cannabis
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  Speaker 2: and that translates to about fifty plants that I can
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  Speaker 2: grow at my personal residence, which is a pretty good number. Now,
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  Speaker 2: you know, could it be more, could it be less?
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  Speaker 2: You know, read it will be The can have reasonable
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  Speaker 2: arguments about these things. What we're talking about right now
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  Speaker 2: are people who are getting scripts for ninety five grams
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  Speaker 2: per day and what ends up happening is that can
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  Speaker 2: actually translate into a five hundred plants operation for one person.
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  Speaker 2: But I can stack four of those at your house, Gene.
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  Speaker 2: So we could actually have eighteen hundred and fifty two
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  Speaker 2: plants in an urban dwelling. And this is what makes
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  Speaker 2: an ultimate get out of jail free card, because organized
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  Speaker 2: crime has figured out Health Canada medical documents are actually
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: better than bulletproof vests. They're using legitimate federal paperwork to
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  Speaker 2: wrap around illicit industrial scale grows. When the police show up,
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  Speaker 2: the growers just tap the glass and point to the
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  Speaker 2: permit and it creates a legal raizone where the cops
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  Speaker 2: are left scratching their heads standing on the sidewalk wondering
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  Speaker 2: just what the heck is going on while they contact
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  Speaker 2: Health Canada comes back and it's just it's a long,
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  Speaker 2: odorous process and quite frankly, nobody really needs to have
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: this many plants.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, man, that's like a ticking time bomb.
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  Speaker 2: It could be. That's what some city councilors that I
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  Speaker 2: talked to about say it as well.
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  Speaker 1: Well. Aside from the illegal sales, what are the actual
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  Speaker 1: physical dangers of these large scale residential growing places in neighborhoods,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: living next door to maybe kids posing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't like to go into too
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  Speaker 2: much about like the risks of mold or mildew or anything,
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  Speaker 2: because you know, you could be growing a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: orchids in your basement for example. Some of the biggest
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  Speaker 2: problems that you have with this, though, is when you
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  Speaker 2: have people who do hydro bypasses so they don't want
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  Speaker 2: to have to pay for electricity or they don't want
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: it to show up on their meter. There's obviously then
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  Speaker 2: the risks that come with that, which can come with fire.
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  Speaker 2: Was this properly installed electrical or was this done you
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  Speaker 2: know on the side on the sly. This is where
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  Speaker 2: city councilors start to really get a little bit concerned.
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  Speaker 2: But more than city councilors are fire departments who go
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  Speaker 2: this is the ticking time bomb. Thank you well.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Health Canada seems to be waking up to this. You
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  Speaker 1: notice a four hundred percent increase in safety related license revocations.
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  Speaker 1: But who are the script mills behind these authorizations and
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  Speaker 1: why has it been so easy for them to bypass
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  Speaker 1: the rules for so long? I mean two thousand plants
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  Speaker 1: for personal medical use being grown in one house.
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  Speaker 2: Gene, unless you're Stoop Dogg's personal physician, nobody is medically
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  Speaker 2: consuming that much cannabis. Let's be honest. But Health Canada
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  Speaker 2: is finally caffeinated. They're finally paying attention, and they've bumped
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  Speaker 2: up safety revocations by over four hundred percent. But these
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  Speaker 2: script mills, the candy men, if you will, these are physicians.
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  Speaker 2: These are doctors, and they've been churning out massive authorizations
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  Speaker 2: like their Oprah given away free cars. You get fifty grams,
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  Speaker 2: you get one hundred grams, you get one hundred and fifty.
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  Speaker 2: We've even't seen one doctor in Saskatchewan get slapped with
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  Speaker 2: a fifteen thousand dollars fine for profiting from this. So
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  Speaker 2: the regulator is finally turning up the heat, but the
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  Speaker 2: cat and mouse game is still very much in play
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  Speaker 2: right now. These script mills, though, from the other argument,
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  Speaker 2: what some people would say, advocates specifically would say, you know,
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  Speaker 2: screw off. Who are you to say anything. My doctor
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  Speaker 2: gave me a prescription. That's between me and him. Do
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  Speaker 2: you see me rooting through your medicine cabinet asking you
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  Speaker 2: why your doctor prescribed you what? So it's really a
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  Speaker 2: touchy situation because we're talking about people's medicine here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know we're also taught I mean, somebody
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  Speaker 1: growing two thousand plants. If they're doing that outside, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this could create a turf war. You could have bad
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  Speaker 1: guys in, you know, invading quiet little neighborhoods in the
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  Speaker 1: suburbs and breaking into backyards and stealing pod and there
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  Speaker 1: could be a whole host of other terrible things that
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  Speaker 1: could happen.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there is definitely the risk of that as well.
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  Speaker 2: And nobody wants to see organized crime moving into their communities.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to see crime in their communities quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: so the risk for that does exist. And here in
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  Speaker 2: my part of the area, and quick thinking you're part
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  Speaker 2: of the area as well in Niagara or there at
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  Speaker 2: be in Essex County down here, there are massive criminal
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  Speaker 2: operations that are growing in industrial scale greenhouses and they're
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  Speaker 2: utilizing these licenses. But let me tell you there have
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  Speaker 2: also been stories of the legally licensed, federally regulated Health
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  Speaker 2: Canada approved growers. One of the most notorious examples was
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  Speaker 2: they built a fake wall, built a fake wall inside
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  Speaker 2: their facility and when the regulators showed up, I think
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  Speaker 2: they saw light coming out through underneath it, or they
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  Speaker 2: smelled something going from behind, and it resulted in the
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  Speaker 2: wall coming down, and oh look, here's a whole other
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  Speaker 2: room with another eight thousand plants. So you know there's
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  Speaker 2: bad operators everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Finally, and I'm just about out of time here, John,
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  Speaker 1: what needs to happen so that legitimate patients get their
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  Speaker 1: medical marijuana without providing a shield for the organized crime
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  Speaker 1: bad guys.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the real fix isn't just bigger handcuffs. That'll just
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  Speaker 2: be better policy. Norfolk County is being pretty adult about this.
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  Speaker 2: They use zoning bylaws to treat grow ops like nuisances
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  Speaker 2: or land use issues rather than drug policies. But ultimately
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  Speaker 2: what we need to do is probably be moving medical
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  Speaker 2: cannabis into pharmacies. And that's what most of the medical
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  Speaker 2: side advocates have said to me. If you can get
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  Speaker 2: your medicine at the shopper's drug mark at the corner,
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  Speaker 2: the excuse for you growing two thousand plants and a
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  Speaker 2: residential garage evaporates overnight. So we have to or advocates
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  Speaker 2: would say, we have to stop letting a constitutional right
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  Speaker 2: to reasonable access be used as a reasonable excuse for
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  Speaker 2: organized crime. But then conversely, people will say, keep your
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  Speaker 2: hands off my medicine.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, I had no idea this was going on. Great
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  Speaker 1: article and thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Jim.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, there he goes John Letke. Another edition of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: High Witness News