Yes.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cannabis.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cannabis.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:25 p.m.
Professor of Marijuana Law and Policy, University of Denver, As an Individual
I assume it's done the same way. I don't think it's done by officers in the field.
3:25 p.m.
Regional Coordinator, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Thank you for letting me speak. I just want to touch on the measures of intoxication, with regard to measuring cannabinoids or THC in the system. As I touched on earlier, these measures are per se limits. That means they're quantifying the concentration of a certain product in the blood.
It is important to note that, as you touched on earlier, the chiefs of police did not endorse the use of per se limits, stating that:
Evidence-based permissible limits are not defined and supported by science.
There is no evidence that “per se” limits adequately quantify impairment and therefore we are concerned with regards to potential challenges within our judicial system. We know with cannabis that people react differently to its effects. Per se limits must be research-based and the science must catch-up to strengthen their credibility.
Meanwhile, although there are roadside tests such as a swab test or a blood test available in Canada, the per se limit doesn't necessarily indicate impairment, so there would be an issue with regard to taking per se limits into account of impairment.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
For sure, I hope you allow us to bring some of these people back.
3:25 p.m.
Regional Director, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Just briefly on the statistics of use by youth, the stats tend to go up and down, but on average, we have more consistency. The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction has it at 26% in 2009, 20% in 2012, and 25% in 2015, so I question the numbers that indicate that there's a drop in use. I'd love to know the sources of them, because from our understanding, use by youth has remained fairly consistent over the past decade, with minor fluctuations. I don't think it's fair to say that we're really succeeding in reducing the rate of consumption by young people.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Chair.
First of all, as a comment to Ms. Sampson and Mr. St-Maurice, you've given us a fair bit of testimony about impairment, measures of impairment, per se limits, and so forth. That's completely out of scope for this bill, but I would advise you to give your information to the justice committee for the study of Bill C-46, which we'll start next week. You've also asked to stop ongoing arrests, and so forth, leading up to legalization, and of course, that is way out of scope for this committee itself.
What I'd like to ask you about is the provisions in this bill for personal cultivation. Do you see those as problematic? Do you see it as a source of diversion to the criminal market? What are your thoughts in terms of the number of plants and the maximum heights of the plants?
3:25 p.m.
Regional Coordinator, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
With regard to personal cultivation for adult use, the cannabis act recommends a four-plant limit for individuals over the age of 18 in a single household. While that is a step forward from zero plants, some of the limitations are pretty arbitrary with regard to how the plant grows and how adults can manage this type of growth. Currently under the cannabis act, plants can be no taller than one metre, which is very restrictive with regard to certain strains of plants that may, just by nature, grow more robust than that limit.
Marc-Boris, would you like to add anything?
3:30 p.m.
Regional Director, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
I think that the limit of four plants is quite low and avoids the risk of diversion. Of course, for anything they put together, people will be right behind it finding a loophole, whether it's making the plant grow five metres horizontally instead of vertically, which would avoid the whole height limitation, or pooling resources so that if they have a neighbour who doesn't grow, they'll ask whether they can put four plants in their backyard. You make something and within five minutes someone finds a workaround.
Definitely, however, home growing must be permitted under the act for people to have the choice. If they do not believe in the government system, they can make it themselves. People grow tomatoes. I'm not sure how many plants, but you can grow your own tobacco. You can make your own wine. You can make your beer. Why would marijuana be different?
I think the limits are rather low, but I guess you have to find a happy medium. We'll start with four.
I think all of the measures in the bill need to be revisited as well. We talk about flying the plane while we're building it. We're definitely doing that here. We are in uncharted waters. Legal marijuana hardly exists on the whole planet, so we have to be able to revisit these measures down the road and perhaps increase the number of plants permitted or find other measures. I know that in the United States they go by square footage of canopy. You can have 100 plants that fit in an area one metre by one metre or you can have one plant that's the size of a Christmas tree. Going by the number of plants may not be the best gauge to achieve the objective you're looking for.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Would Professor Kamin or Mr. Hartman like to comment on the possible diversion from a personal cultivation scenario to the criminal market?
3:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Colorado Department of Revenue
Certainly.
As I indicated previously, in the caregiver market, which is not part of the regulated market, we used to allow up to 99 plants per individual. You could, as Mr. St-Maurice indicated, have joint relationships with people around you whereby they give you their right to grow their plants, etc.
What we found was that this was a significant opportunity for diversion, which was problematic. As a result, last year our legislature reduced the number of plants you could have in the home to 12, regardless of how many caregivers you have.
What I would tell you is that I don't know what the right number is, but having bright-line tests that law enforcement can look to in order to clearly identify what's going on with the situation and enforce the laws and regulations is incredibly important as you think about your legislation.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Is this height limit meaningful? Is there any correlation between the yield of a plant and its height?
3:30 p.m.
Regional Director, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Depending on the strain, a one-metre plant can produce between zero grams and several hundred grams, depending on how it's grown, how it's pruned, the talents of the person growing it, the strain of marijuana in particular. If you have a one-metre high plant and you forget to water it and it dies, your basic yield is zero.
It is arbitrary. I guess you have to start somewhere, but I find it a little humorous to put in that limit of one metre. I can imagine law enforcement going around with their tape measures, saying, “I'm sorry, you're one centimetre over.” Are they going to cut that centimetre off and seize it, or are they going to take the whole plant as a result? It is a little Kafkaesque, if you ask me, to have set it at that arbitrary level.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Okay. The time is up.
That completes our five-minute round. Now we're going to go to Mr. Davies for his three-minute round.
3:30 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Colorado, I'm interested in how you handle branding, advertising, and labelling. It's one of the expressed goals of this bill to take product out of the illicit market, and I'm informed by many people who produce cannabis that they want.... Everybody agrees that we do not want to market to children and want things to be safe and properly labelled. Those are givens, but within that, I'm hearing that there has to be enough branding in the licit market to actually take product out of the illicit market.
I'm wondering how you handle the labelling and branding question.
3:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Colorado Department of Revenue
I don't know that I agree with the last statement. I think it comes down to distribution channels and retail storefronts where you can access it legally and conveniently. I recognize that our geographic challenges are different than yours, so that may be a different question.
In regard to packaging, it's a current discussion that we're going through with industry and with public health officials, to make sure that we understand specifically what the key piece of information is that has to be on the packaging. If someone presents themselves in an emergency department where the physician doesn't know what they consumed, and the patient is not in a position to communicate what they consumed, how can the emergency room doctor figure out what the situation is.
We are also trying to balance that with what is reasonable to ask of industry, in terms of the information on their packaging. As I indicated at the beginning, our default is always going to lean towards public health and public safety, and there's always going to be a natural tension there. I think it's incredibly important that you have child-resistant packaging, as close to the product as you possibly can, and understand how the consumers are actually going to utilize the product, such that the child-resistant packaging doesn't get discarded with the point of sale packaging, if you will, when it's in the homes.