Canadian Provincial Governments Fail to Ensure Adequate Access to Medicinal Cannabis

Canadian Provincial Governments Fail to Ensure Adequate Access to Medicinal Cannabis
Canadian Provincial Governments Fail to Ensure Adequate Access to Medicinal Cannabis
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  • Canada’s federal and provincial governments are compounding their incompetence in opening up the recreational market by reducing access to medicinal cannabis 
  • Canada's provinces are now "playing politics" with peoples' lives

For cannabis investors who were thinking that things couldn’t get worse in Canada regarding inadequate access to legal cannabis, think again.

The Seed Investor has already been following the failure in many Canadian provinces (notably Ontario) to open up the new legal market for recreational cannabis in a prompt/competent manner. Now we are learning that access to medicinal cannabis has actually been getting worse in Canada.

This Huffington Post headline is a damning indictment of provincial incompetence.
 
Medical Cannabis Users Feel 'Elbowed Out' By Canada's Legalization

Earlier this month, a survey commissioned by Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana (CFAMM), the Arthritis Society and the Canadian Pharmacists Association found one in four medical cannabis users said it was harder to access the drug since legalization.

It works like this. In their zeal to over-tax and over-regulate legal cannabis operations, Canadian provinces have been doing their best to eradicate gray market cannabis dispensaries – many of whom focused on providing medicinal cannabis.

We’ve already seen these governments undermining the supply of recreational cannabis through this stupidity: shutting down gray market operators and failing to license nearly enough retail cannabis storefronts.

The difference is that these Canadians purchasing medicinal cannabis don’t merely want access to this now-legal medicinal drug. They need it.

Cannabis investors have regularly seen uninformed media reports of the “under-performance” of Canadian cannabis companies. Such reporting undoubtedly contributed to the firing of former Canopy Growth CEO, Bruce Linton.

The reality, however, is that the “under-performance” here has been almost exclusively at the government end. The anti-cannabis biases of these governments are clearly on display.

Obviously, any responsible government regulating the now-legal cannabis industry would have spent at least as much time and effort in opening up fully legal, licensed store fronts as it spent on closing down gray market businesses (many of whom had local business licenses and were paying taxes).

Most of Canada’s provinces have been anything but “responsible” in administering legalized cannabis in Canada. You can’t “eliminate black market cannabis” (the stated goal of all governments) without providing reasonable access to legal cannabis.

The Huffington Post article reported something equally disturbing:
 
The survey also found 38 per cent of medical users rely heavily on cannabis to treat pain, insomnia, anxiety, stress and arthritis. Ensuring marijuana is available for these people ensures they don’t turn to opioids, a family of drugs linked to more than 10,300 deaths in Canada from January 2016 to September 2018.

Previously, the issue has been anti-cannabis provinces undermining the legal cannabis industry by refusing to implement legalized cannabis in good faith. Now these governments are jeopardizing the health of Canadians through their biases and incompetence.

Canadian provinces – such as Ontario – apparently aren’t content with undermining the health of Canada’s legal cannabis industry. They are also playing politics with peoples’ lives.
Tags
Cannabis Focus, Cannabis Industry, Health
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