Health Committee on Sept. 15th, 2017

[Jacqueline Bogden]

Could I respond to that, Mr. Chair?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Ms. Bogden, I want to address a couple of questions to Ms. Black in my limited time.

Ms. Black, I want to ask you about advertising. One of your recommendations is to ensure that advertising restrictions do not unduly limit the capacity for service providers to provide education and convey product characteristics and help instill consumer confidence in this new regulation. We've heard some testimony that really sends a very dire message to this committee about advertising, that we don't want it in sports facilities, we don't want it on billboards, and we don't want to convey lifestyle advertising. I understand that.

What do you mean by the recommendation in your testimony?

[Hilary Black]

Thank you for the question. Before I answer it, may I clarify something for you on your previous question?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes.

[Hilary Black]

The restrictions, as I understand them.... I simply want to be clear that the restrictions in the oils that are currently available are not for vaporizing. Those are for ingestion only.

I also want to make a comment that inhalation is a very important mode of administration and it can be done very safely when a vaporizer is used properly. I want to make sure that we're not demonizing it in terms of patients using inhalation since the immediate onset of symptom relief is very important. My understanding is that the restriction in the ACMPR currently is 30 milligrams of THC per millilitre—I'm not quite sure where the 3% number came from—and 30 milligrams of THC is quite a lot. When I am teaching patients how to use cannabis for the first time, if they're using oil, I have them start with 2.5 milligrams and wait until the next day before they increase it.

I just wanted to clarify that.

In terms of advertising, from the Compassion Club perspective we would like to be able to do more patient outreach. We have always worked very hard to be compliant with every bylaw, every little law we can possibly be compliant with, while we break the big ones. We don't do any patient outreach into other patient groups that could really benefit from our services because we don't want to be contravening any of the advertising regulations.

Two years ago we received a letter from Health Canada that was fairly heavy-handed in terms of informing us that relative to the menu that we had on our website and on our telephone line, if we didn't immediately cease and desist, there would be millions of dollars' worth of fines and years in jail, so we immediately complied. Most of the other unregulated dispensaries in Vancouver and the online ones have not complied in the same way that we have. As a result, we are losing revenue quite significantly, which is impacting our ability to provide patient services.

I suggest that the same thing will happen with the legal market. If the legal market is handcuffed in terms of being able to talk about the effects of the products, or able to talk about the qualities of the products, or even the nature of the company that has produced them, you're going to give a substantial advantage to players who are producing cannabis in an unregulated market.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Just quickly, is—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Sorry, your time is up.

I do want to give Ms. Bogden a chance to answer a question.

I think you wanted to make a comment a while ago, Ms. Bogden.

[Jacqueline Bogden]

Actually, I think Ms. Black provided the precision that I wanted to, that the cannabis oil is quality controlled and is actually ingested, that it wouldn't be inhaled, and that 30 milligrams per millilitre is actually a significant quality-controlled dose that would be available.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That brings to an end our normal circuit of questions, but I have a question for Ms. Black.

In your opinion, why will nobody apply to have medical marijuana listed and assigned a number?

[Hilary Black]

This is not my area of expertise, but from a layperson, my understanding is that when you are applying for a drug approval status and you have to go through human clinical trials, you have to do that with each individual active ingredient in the medicine you're looking to get approval for. Cannabis has over 80 active cannabinoids. Then there is a whole other class of active ingredients called terpenoids, or terpenes, which are responsible for the flavour and the smell that distinguish the strains. Emerging evidence is showing us that the terpenes also interact with our endocannabinoid system and have therapeutic effects.

My understanding is that cannabis is a very complex plant and doesn't fit easily into the pathway in the way that we regulate pharmaceutical medicines, which are often single active ingredients. It's a plant that has many different active ingredients. Again, it's not my area of expertise, but I also understand that you have to go through clinical trials for each one of the indications that you're seeking approval for, and cannabis is used for an incredibly wide range of symptoms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

[Hilary Black]

Maybe we'll be able to put our heads together to see if we can come up with a solution and find a way forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Well, if we can help you, we'd like to do that.

Now, I'm getting all kinds of signals from others here, hand signals and....

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

You know what I'm going to say. We have some time remaining, so I'd like to seek unanimous consent, and here's the twist, to have each party have five minutes to ask questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

You'd like each party to have five minutes to ask questions. If you want to, we'll go back to round one, which is five-minute questions.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I would accept it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is there unanimous consent?

There's no unanimous consent, so we can't do it.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That brings our meeting to a close.

On behalf of the committee, I want to say you've been great witnesses. I especially want to thank Mr. Zaid and Madame Elisma for sharing their personal stories with us. These are the stories that really mean something to us. You've made a difference by coming today and testifying, so I want to thank you all for your testimony, on behalf of all of the members of the committee.

I hereby suspend the meeting, and we will come back at 1:45.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I'll call our meeting back to order.

This is meeting number 68 of the Standing Committee on Health in the 42nd Parliament.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, June 8, 2017, we're studying Bill C-45, an act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other acts.

We welcome our guests. The focus of our meeting on this panel is municipalities: the impact on municipalities and the challenges they will face.

From the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, we have Ms. Lisa Holmes, president. From Cannabis Culture, we have Jodie and Marc Emery. By video conference, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, we have Brock Carlton, chief executive officer, along with his friend, Bill Karsten, second vice-president. Mr. Karsten is also a councillor from the Halifax Regional Municipality. They're both in Fort McMurray, and we'll be hearing from them shortly.

Welcome to you all.

The way we start is we offer each organization 10 minutes for an opening statement, and then we go to questions.

We'll start, in the order that I introduced you, with the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association.

Mayor Holmes, you have 10 minutes.

[Lisa Holmes, President, Alberta Urban Municipalities Association]

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to address your committee today.

My name is Lisa Holmes. I am the mayor of Morinville, Alberta, and the president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, which is also known as AUMA.

AUMA is an association of all urban municipalities in Alberta, spanning all types of villages, towns, and cities, including Edmonton and Calgary, that are collectively home to almost 90% of Alberta's population.

AUMA was the first provincial association of municipalities in Canada to take action on addressing the potential health and safety implications coming from the legalization of cannabis. Several years ago, we struck a working group to develop recommendations relating to medical cannabis production facilities and actions to address illegal grow ops. Since then, and since the announcement of the government's desire to legalize cannabis, we have been working with other associations across Canada to proactively identify the importance of an integrated approach between the federal, provincial, and municipal governments on the implementation of Bill C-45. It is our desire to find ways for our three levels of government to collectively ensure appropriate systems are in place to educate the public, restrict inappropriate usage, address health and safety issues, and enable coordinated enforcement.

Our concern is with the timing of these conversations taking place. AUMA strongly supports a slower timeline for implementing this legislation, given the complex nature of the health and safety issues that need to be resolved and the need for comprehensive and coordinated legislation by all three levels of government. The speed at which the federal government intends to move ahead puts our local communities at risk. The federal government must lead this process at a much more measured pace and allow both provincial and municipal governments to work together to create an appropriate framework for each province.

The provincial regulations, including those related to alcohol and drugs, traffic safety, and employment standards need to be developed well in advance of the federal implementation date. To be frank, with this issue, we at AUMA do not feel that municipalities are being treated as an equal partner at the planning table, and it is imperative that all three levels of government be given appropriate time and support in order to prepare all of the required regulations and bylaws that are necessary for the areas we are each responsible for.

Municipalities will be at the front line of this. We are the level of government that's within the local community. We are operating closest to the people, and we will be the ones that have to implement, enforce, and address the impacts of this new regulatory regime. Our members are concerned about the downloading of these new duties related to cannabis legislation without the accompanying resources to ensure that the duties, particularly enforcement, can be effectively conducted. Funding and resources must be made available to municipalities to develop capacity and to offset administrative costs around licensing, education, inspection, and enforcement. Equipment and training costs related to enforcement must be fully funded through either a cannabis tax or by the federal or provincial government so costs are not downloaded onto our local communities.

With respect to health and safety matters, AUMA supports the federal task force recommendation around minimum age of purchase, advertising and promotion, packaging and labelling, and public education strategies, provided municipal governments are engaged in any of these matters impacting them as legislation and regulations are developed.

Public education, with respect to potential risks and harms of cannabis must be a political and policy priority for the federal government. We support early and intensive public education as well as an approach to packaging, marketing, and advertising similar to that of tobacco in order to limit the appeal of cannabis to youth.

These health and safety issues span the production, distribution, and consumption of cannabis. For example, municipalities had been advocating for sufficient fire and building code changes to regulate the growth of cannabis, particularly in residential properties, so that current and prospective property owners are protected from the adverse effects that a home-grow can create.

As well, the sale of cannabis products needs to be carefully considered to ensure it eliminates the illegal drug market while not occurring in a way that is dangerous to youth or others in our communities. Municipalities will work with you to do that by setting out restrictions on where cannabis is publicly consumed. However, around 96% of the urban municipalities in Alberta have yet to enact bylaws or policies that regulate the use of cannabis in their communities because the lack of information and certainty around what will be included in the regulations, both federally and provincially, don't allow us to move forward. Most of the municipalities that have started to work on this have only extended their current policy and bylaw around smoking to include smoking cannabis products. There is a significant amount of work we have to do, and municipalities will be left with little or no time after the federal and provincial frameworks are adopted to put our own bylaws and policies in place that are necessary to keep our communities safe.

Again, it is our belief that production, distribution, and consumption of cannabis raise significant health and safety concerns in the local community. Given that actual enforcement will take place at the local level, the federal government should engage with municipal governments and police forces to determine the best method of achieving their overarching objective to minimize harm. AUMA did a survey of our membership and found the number one issue that urban municipalities in Alberta are concerned about regarding this legislation is public safety issues such as impaired driving and policing and enforcement. Given the limitations within the current testing available for cannabis impairment, AUMA believes the additional rules to discourage drug-impaired driving, such as a per se limit, should not be put in place until there is a robust body of evidence and a reliable testing mechanism to support the measurement of impairment at a time a person is driving. We recommend the federal government invest in research to better link drug levels with impairment and crash risk, and a national comprehensive public education strategy to send a clear message that cannabis causes impairment and that the best way to avoid driving impaired is not to consume.

In Alberta, our protective services do not just include the RCMP, but also municipal police forces, community peace officers, and bylaw officers. All these groups must be a component of the enforcement activities and require funded training and equipment relating to traffic so they can detain potential offenders until other law enforcement agencies can validate and, if necessary, lay charges. The training and equipment required is very expensive and that is not a cost our municipalities, especially the small ones, can absorb. It is concerning to us as municipal elected officials to hear from the RCMP that we contract to police our communities that it will not have enough time to train its officers before the July 2018 implementation date. Without that training and the equipment necessary for the enforcement of these regulations, the laws, and the bylaws, there is a lack of confidence from Alberta municipalities that we can meet one of our core mandates: ensuring the highest degree of safety and security for our community.

Again, I offer our suggestion that the federal government take a measured and phased-in approach to cannabis legislation. This approach is essential as we are working within a complex environment and, although many of us are trying to predict what will happen, none of us can claim to know exactly what outcomes will arise as a result of this legislation. This approach will provide opportunity to adjust strategies as required after all three levels of government and the stakeholders have the time to assess how this legislation and corresponding regulations will impact them. Our main ask is simple: slow down, learn from other jurisdictions, and provide time for all of us to get this right the first time.

I appreciate this opportunity to bring forward the comments from AUMA, and I'm available if you have questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you, Mayor Holmes.

Now we go to Cannabis Culture for 10 minutes. I believe, Marc Emery, you're going to open for five minutes and then share five minutes.

[Marc Emery, Cannabis Culture]

I look forward to the five, Mr. Chair, and thank you for inviting us.

We are from Cannabis Culture, which has been an activist organization since 1994 that has been dedicated to overgrowing this government, which in our language is to legalize this government. I said “overgrow”, not “overthrow”.

With all due respect to the fact that this is the health committee, marijuana is one of the safest substances on earth. I walk down Sparks Street, and marijuana is safer than every product they're selling there. It's safer than candy. It's safer than eating at McDonald's. It's safer than prescription drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, all of which are commonly available on this street. It's safer than cheerleading in high school. It's safer than football in high school. It's safer than hockey in high school. You could rarely make a more safe choice than choosing to use cannabis for whatever reason.

That's why I think it's wholly unworthy of a parliament to spend a whole week discussing the health concerns of a substance that has not killed anybody while being supplied by the free market—some call it the black market—for the last 50 years. Imagine. Can you conceptualize any other product that hasn't killed anyone in 50 years? Cars kill people all the time. Alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, and foods kill people. Obesity kills people.

Of everything you do in society out there, exercising your own bodily autonomy, guaranteed to us by the Supreme Court in the Morgentaler case to control our own bodies, there are few things you could take that are not more harmful than cannabis. In fact, even government-approved water in Walkerton, Ontario killed eight people, so water is more dangerous than marijuana, realistically.

This should be at the justice committee. The reason is that I've been in 36 prisons and jails for pot. I was exiled by my own government for five years to the United States for selling seeds by mail. Can you imagine? This country was founded on agriculture and farming, yet I spent five years in jail, co-authorized by my own government, because I sent seeds to willing adults to plant plants. We've come to this. The justice committee should be looking at this because 2,400,000 Canadians have been criminalized with charges of cannabis offences since 1965.

There is nothing else in this country remotely close to 2.4 million people getting charged for doing something they love, which is growing, selling, or consuming marijuana and harming no one else. If we have organized crime in there, it's because you created it. Had you not criminalized marijuana, nobody would be handling marijuana except organized regular retailers in our usual business regime. So you're the problem. You're at fault. We've had prohibition for 93 years. I've never seen Parliament modernize or ameliorate those terrible things in any of that time.

I spent three months in Saskatoon Correctional Centre for passing one joint. I was sent to the United States for five years for sending seeds to Americans, and we have done every manner of disobedience. As I said, I've been arrested probably 27 or 28 times, and I've been jailed 36 times. I've been jailed in nine out of 10 provinces for my activism. I've seen prisons in this country. We need to get rid of this criminalization...and the legalization that everybody really wanted when we thought we were electing Mr. Trudeau and his platform...was simply the way it was brought in.

In 1923 the justice minister got up in Parliament and told the Speaker that they had added a new drug to the schedule, and that was it. There was no other discussion, nothing else. So you can legalize it in the exact same way, “Mr. Speaker, we've removed cannabis from the schedule.” That's the only legalization that's really permissible. It's the only one that's really legalization. Everything else is a recriminalization. In fact, I dare say, there are more criminal offences in the new cannabis act than there currently are in the existing legislation, so you're broadening it to include more people with more offences, and virtually everybody who needs to be legalized, all the growers in this country, all the sellers, and all the consumers, will still be criminalized under this cannabis act. Only licensed producers, a very small minority, are going to be allowed to grow marijuana. You can't possess marijuana that doesn't even come from a licensed producer or some Ontario government monopoly, Quebec government monopoly, or New Brunswick government monopoly.

Before at least we were only criminalized. Now we're going to be criminalized and exploited by our own governments. We're going to be used as a cash cow, have our own culture usurped from us and handed over to a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians who probably never smoked pot in their lives, don't understand anything about these people, and don't understand anything about us. It's a total insult to about five million Canadians who adore this plant, love this plant, use this plant, consume it, sell it, grow it, and have been involved their whole lives, like I have, in this plant, and to listen to this kind of discussion....

The government that has oppressed us is going to come and be our liberators and hand it to us and dole it out like we're children. Children. We're being condescended to in the worst possible way. We're adults. We make choices. If you're concerned about children, great. Deal with that, but for most of the country who smoke marijuana, they're 18 years old to 80 years old.

Thank you, Mr. Casey. That's five minutes. I'll let my wife continue. She's going to tell you how great marijuana is.

[Jodie Emery, Cannabis Culture]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank you for inviting me to speak here. I represent, I believe, the victims of prohibition while I'm here.

We've heard from a lot of experts, bureaucrats, and a lot of people who have a lot to say, and it's fantastic that we're having this discussion. The idea that we're sitting here today talking about legalization in this country means a lot to me. I campaigned for the Liberals as a nomination candidate because I believed in legalization.

Not only am I currently a victim of prohibition myself, out on bail before you here after being arrested six months ago, but prior to that I was a drug war widow. I spent years with my husband taken away from me and imprisoned in a foreign country he had never been to, with the Drug Enforcement Administration saying very clearly that it was because of his legalization activism and because he gave millions of dollars to legalization reform groups around the world. That was the DEA's own chief, Karen Tandy, and it's a press release you can easily see. He says it was for seeds, but the U.S. government says it was for legalization activism.

We're here to talk about legalizing cannabis, which means we should not have any law enforcement concerns. If it's going to be legal, law enforcement should focus on actual crimes with real victims, such as rape, assault, murder, theft.

I have law enforcement family members. My aunt and uncle are in Alberta with the RCMP and work with MADD. My sister is with the Vancouver Police Department. I care about law enforcement. I care about the laws. I care about this country and our citizens, but our country, these laws, and our citizens are being harmed by this prohibition and by any criminalization of cannabis. Even if cannabis were dangerous, even it it killed people every day and contributed to rape, assault, and murder of our young adults all across this country the way alcohol does, it shouldn't be illegal. We should have the free choice to consume, grow, or share a plant that isn't just benign or neutral, but as you've heard, it actually helps people. It saves lives.

I know we have only a few minutes here, but I want to cite.... If you read my brief.... I submitted 10 pages...reduced to five.

Let's look at the actual health impact of cannabis. The American Journal of Medicine in 2013 and the Journal of Health Economics in 2017 said that cannabis use reduces obesity, that it results in healthier, thinner, consumers. The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2015 said that cannabis is medicine. The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2012 said that a 20-year study found no damage to lungs from cannabis. This is backed up by Dr. Donald Tashkin, whom the U.S. government asked to prove that it causes lung cancer. They found it actually prevents it. You can go to cancer.gov. The U.S. government says that cannabis and cannabinoids attack and kill cancer cells. They shrink brain cancer cells—that's in the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics journal of 2014. You have the American Journal of Public Health in 2014 saying that cannabis access reduces suicide rates.

My father took his life when I was nine. This gold necklace here was his. I was on anti-depressants for many years, and they caused me harm. We heard just yesterday that anti-depressants increase suicide rates by 33%. That's why I got off anti-depressants and I use cannabis instead. I use illegal cannabis, because I'm out on bail, so I'm not allowed to go to a dispensary.

I'm going to show you a marijuana joint. This is what we're here to talk about. This is cannabis, and it's not hurting anybody. But I've been inside the U.S. prison system, and I'll tell you that I didn't cry for myself or my husband as victims of prohibition; I cried for the children, the mothers, and the families who were there visiting their loved ones, the little babies who saw their daddy on the other side of the visiting room. They asked, “Why is my daddy here? He didn't hurt anybody. They say prisoners are bad, but my dad, he's not bad, is he?” The moms are trying not to cry, and these little kids are saying, “Mom, please don't cry. Please be brave.” These are the victims of cannabis prohibition. Cannabis prohibition has far more victims and far more devastation than cannabis ever could.

Right now we have a drug crisis in this country. It's the opioid crisis. None of you here have not heard of it. You have the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse saying that cannabis dispensaries reduce opioid deaths. You have so much evidence showing that. Even the Harvard study in Frontiers in Pharmacology says that it improves cognitive functioning. The American Psychological Association in 2015 said that teens, even chronic users, do not have later issues. The British journal.... They find cannabis is the safest substance.

I get emotional here, because I followed the law. Every year my husband was incarcerated I had to cross that U.S. border knowing that they could ask me if I use pot and that I could be denied the ability to see my husband. I managed to get through, because I followed the rules as closely as I could.

Then we decided to engage in peaceful civil disobedience, just like Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who received the Order of Canada for breaking the law to provide a much needed service. Civil disobedience is the only way we've managed to change these laws in this country with respect to cannabis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Emery, I really appreciate your passion and your commitment to this and you're going to have lots of chances to answer questions and provide information, but I have to move along to the other speakers.