Health committee  Some of the information we have around this is from the current medical system, where we have some very large producers licensed and also some small mom-and-pop-style producers under licence. There's a general feeling that the illicit world, which includes many small growers, pri

Health committee  One of the things about the experience Mr. Conroy referred to in medical cannabis is that people have now been receiving cannabis or producing it themselves and there are lock boxes and other sorts of small safes that can be put in people's houses. Certainly, with the opiate epid

Health committee  I hadn't thought of it that way. Yes, in general, as I mentioned before, the science is still out on this indica-sativa split and how it relates to the effects of the plant. Generally, yes, this taller, lankier, open-flowering sativa type can be lower potency than the dense, squa

Health committee  Yes, and indica—that type of short, squat plant—is the backbone of the commercial cannabis industry, legal or otherwise. So yes, by enforcing a height limit, there will be potentially a higher yield in that area than these taller plants, though you can get high-yielding indica ty

Health committee  Yes, adding that to the legislation would be beneficial. Some of these things have been treated in regulations. Currently, under the narcotic control regulations, licensing and exemptions for research are delineated, but it has been the case that we just don't have the research t

Health committee  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, a

Health committee  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 issu

Health committee  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.

Health committee  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 plant

Health committee  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

Health committee  Yes, it's as easy as tomatoes, though a lot of growers make all sort of complexities with cuttings, hydroponics, and all this kind of stuff. In general, it's like a weed. It grows easily.

Health committee  Where I was going though was my recommendation around plant height: that's a hard one to regulate. The plant does grow. Limit the number of plants and maybe the number of flowering plants, but after that, do not get into this idea that if we hit 100 centimetres, that's suddenly i

Health committee  As your colleague asked before, could you expand that to 150 centimetres or 200 centimetres and encompass more of the typical growing that might occur, and therefore Canadians wouldn't be offside if their plant has sort of inched up in those directions? I would say that police c

Health committee  I do think that we can strike a balance between a free-for-all, wide-open “You could plant 10 acres of cannabis if you wanted to,” and very restrictive limits. What I was getting at before was that I do agree that some plant limits for personal production are appropriate. We do s

Health committee  Back to your question about outdoor and sustainability, the submission you referred to is one that I did as a team, not the one I'm doing as a witness here. It really highlighted the issues around the carbon footprint of indoor cultivation on a commercial level, but less regardi