Evidence of meeting #66 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was youth.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
So these small-business owners most likely will be negatively affected by these changes in the law. That's what you're saying?
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
These “tax cheats”, I should say. We have to keep that type of thing straight.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Yesterday we heard that home cultivation would make it easier for you to access cannabis.
Mr. Page, could you explain to us what would be the impact on children or youth of eating the raw leaves of a cannabis plant?
Chief Executive Officer, Anandia Labs
That's a good question.
The leaves of the cannabis plant are not typically consumed by someone who wants to get high. It's the flowers that are rich in THC and other cannabinoids. The reason they're not consumed by people interested in getting high is that they contain very low levels of cannabinoids. So the classic sort of pot leaf that you see on people's T-shirts and things like that doesn't have a lot of THC or CBD cannabidiol in it.
With regard to the impact on children—and I'm a plant scientist, not a medical doctor—I'm going out on a limb a little bit, but just on the basis of the plant chemistry, if kids eat cannabis leaves or a small cannabis plant, not a lot of cannabinoids are going to get into their system and affect them.
On the other hand, if the plant is flowering and it is that THC-rich material or CBD-rich material, they could ingest it and receive a dose of that. It gets a little technical here. The plant actually doesn't make THC. It makes an acidic form of THC. So tetrahydrocannabinolic acid is the form the plant makes and you actually have to heat it to form THC, which is why smoking a joint or baking a brownie or something is required.
If a child were to eat the raw bud of cannabis, they'd get mainly the acidic form, which is non-psychoactive. The fresh material is not capable of getting you high. You need to bake it or heat it or smoke it to get there.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you.
Presently, the illicit market is 100% controlled by criminals, with an estimated $7 billion in income annually for organized crime. Furthermore, the cannabis being sold today is unregulated, untested, and often unsafe. How has allowing homegrown fought this illegal market? Can you explain that?
That's for Mr. Conroy or for both.
Barrister, As an Individual
How has homegrown helped to eliminate the black market?
Barrister, As an Individual
Well, it's because people are growing it for themselves instead of being consumers of something that somebody else is producing. You're eliminating the market; you're not buying into the market. That's why these stores are the most important thing in terms of reducing the black market because most people don't want to grow for themselves. However, home-grows will reduce the demand that's out there. With regard to tobacco, for example, under the tobacco control act you can grow 15 kilograms of tobacco for anybody over the age of 18 in your premises. We don't have a demand for illicit tobacco anymore, that I know of. I've never had anybody charged with that in my career in any event. It is the same with alcohol. You can make as much beer, wine, and spirits as you want. You can share it with your neighbour, but you can't sell it. We used to have bootleggers and stills and so on in the old days, certainly in the area where I live, and we don't see much of that anymore.
Flooding the market, in my view, is what we need to do so that we can regulate it and control it. We have the tobacco act, and we have tobacco regulations under that act. Presumably we're going to see federal cannabis act regulations, and presumably we're going to see provincial cannabis acts with regulations. So I say, as I think Dr. Page was saying, that many of these issues can be dealt with in those regulations without federally saying four plants 100 centimetres tall. You can allow the feds, as they do for tobacco and alcohol, to control manufacturing, but you can allow the fine details to be controlled in those regulations, and particularly in the provinces. Human ingenuity being what it is—which keeps some of us lawyers busy—people will do things in order to get around what you come up with. You have to anticipate what may occur, but, as I say, make an opportunity for it to be done in a way that hopefully doesn't impact others.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, presenters, for being here today.
Dr. Page, your submission to the committee here I found quite interesting. You talked about the environmental considerations of indoor cultivation, and you say that:
...the statistics are staggering. According to a report by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in Oregon (where recreational marijuana has been legal since 2014) an indoor grow system for only four plants consumes as much energy as 29 refrigerators.
You say:
The carbon emissions of this energy use are likewise staggering. It has been estimated that one average kilogram of final product is associated with 4600kg of C02 emissions. Looked at another way, embedded in an average indoor-grown plant is the energy equivalent of 265 litres of oil. From the perspective of individual consumers, a single marijuana joint represents about 4.6 kg of C02 emissions, or an amount of electricity equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 75 hours. In addition to the environmental and economic cost of the energy intensive nature of indoor cultivation, the legalization of marijuana has also placed strains on some individual utilities and local grids in US states where marijuana has been legalized.
It is clear to me that there is quite an environmental impact to growing four or however many plants in a household, yet you propose that we allow even more than four plants, which is the proposed legislation. Is it because you're not concerned about the environment, or is it because you believe that we have the right to grow more plants?
Chief Executive Officer, Anandia Labs
No, I think, in general, what that submission is getting at is mainly the large-scale commercial production, which currently under the medical regime allows indoor production and greenhouses, but not outdoor production. The idea is that either personal production—four or 10 plants or what have we for personal use—could also include outdoor production. In the apartment situation, this could be on someone's balcony, carefully monitored so as to not be exposed to public view. In the larger-scale commercial industry that we've seen now with medical cannabis and we'll see with recreational cannabis, that would also allow secure facilities with appropriate fences, cameras, and alarms to have outdoor production as part of the spectrum in order to have a more sustainable industry.
Because we're talking about personal cultivation here, I guess where I would go with that is that regulations would encourage the outdoor possibility to reduce that carbon footprint.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Okay, thank you.
I can see with the effects here why Mr. Dickie and his association are concerned with tenants growing indoor plants, and the cost to our environment.
Mr. Dickie, I owned a condominium in Edmonton. I lived there for a number of years in the past, though I don't anymore. I had to deal with a neighbour in a high-rise beside me who would have their morning toke and their evening toke before bedtime. I had to deal with the second-hand smoke coming into my apartment. It was frustrating. I did talk to the landlord about it. They indicated that it was for medicinal use and they had legal documents stating that they can grow and smoke, so there was not a hell of a lot I could do about it, other than to try to sell my condo.
It's up for sale now, and if anybody here is looking for a condo in Edmonton, come and talk to me.
President, Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations
With added second-hand smoke as kind of an amenity.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Yes, exactly. I do understand your concerns and the concerns of your association.
Now, with the government going forward and allowing recreational marijuana, I can see more and more apartments, and more and more people like me out there dealing with more and more second-hand smoke from neighbours who live in multi-dwellings.
President, Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations
Yes, it's certainly a concern.
One of our suggestions today is to attempt to achieve a compromise in which a landlord's consent is required, and with different levels, which the provinces could choose, of ability to refuse or not refuse consent. That would allow us to take into account these safety features in the buildings. It would allow for a diverse market, a diverse supply of apartments, some buildings where cannabis is used, and if you're going to rent them, you know you're going to get some second-hand smoke but you can use it yourself, or other places where you will not get second-hand smoke and you will not be smoking cannabis.
The medical users need to go in the first set, so that could solve the problem in terms of creating these two sectors of the market. There would probably be a little middle ground in which a few people use it occasionally and no one freaks out about that. However, certainly there are many, many people who rent apartments who do not want second-hand tobacco smoke and second-hand marijuana smoke, as well as the fire safety issues and the humidity, and all of those issues.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your testimony today.
One of the goals of the legislation is a public health goal to ensure that cannabis is produced in a way that's safe and there are no contaminants, and that it's a licensed production facility. We've heard from some witnesses that growing marijuana at home sort of reintroduces those risks.
I am curious, and I guess the fundamental question is, can you grow safe cannabis at home? Are there any general increased risks that would be a contaminant which would be unhealthy for people, and that as part of public health we should be addressing with this legislation as part of education or messaging to the public?
Chief Executive Officer, Anandia Labs
I absolutely think that people can grow safe cannabis at home. There is nothing inherent about home production that would say there's an issue with mould contamination or something that is different, say, from what licensed producers would do. Of course, they are professionals, and presumably the home cultivators are more hobbyists or amateurs, but some of them get really good at this.
One of the things we haven't had good statistics on is the quality control analysis of home cultivation under the medical regime, so I can't refer to a statistic that says only 2% of it showed signs of mould or something. We don't have those numbers. However, there's really nothing to indicate that there are inherent problems, whether it's a backyard cultivation set-up, or indoor in your garage or basement.
That said, there have been indications of concerns around things like heat and wiring and, as Mr. Conroy has said, I think those were well refuted in the Allard trial. In both aspects, the plant itself and then the sort of infrastructure for the plant, we don't have a lot of information to say home cultivation is absolutely bad and people shouldn't do it, from the public safety aspect.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
Thank you.
I'm Googling here. Four marijuana plants under a 60-watt HPS lamp, whatever that is, will produce about 150 grams per plant, or about 600 grams from the four plants.
We've heard from many witnesses that they are concerned about increased exposure of children, of youth, to marijuana because of home-grown plants. Again, one of the goals of legislation is to reduce access to marijuana for Canadian youth.
Do you have any reflection on that? I heard you say that when the plant is growing, unless you heat it or do something, it doesn't actually release the THC components, but once it's dried and you have 600 grams of it sitting around somewhere in jars, what's your feeling about children's exposure to it at home?
Chief Executive Officer, Anandia Labs
Being in the same room as a jar of cannabis, obviously, doesn't mean that THC is wafting around. Children—and I guess I would define them as being younger than 13—are not smoking anything. They're not interested in that. As they become teenagers, that becomes something of an issue.
It's not a very attractive thing to be eating. Toddlers are not going to reach into a jar of dried cannabis and start nibbling on it. It's sticky. It's stinky. It tastes bad. It's dry and crispy. It's not something like a cookie, or whatever, that's going to be more attractive, so I don't think we're looking at a massive problem.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
It does seem harder for a parent to control 600 grams of dried product versus 30 grams of dried product, in terms of someone getting into it or not. There does seem to be a greater quantity at home under the home-growing operations.
Chief Executive Officer, Anandia Labs
Right, but I think secure storage is secure storage, and 600 grams is not like a bale of hay, so to speak. It's a smaller amount that can still be locked up, the same as a 30-gram amount. I have kids at home—9 and 13—so I think about these things as well.
