Finance committee  Absolutely. We agree. The absence of a DIN is not a legitimate reason to tax patients. We're not just talking about the HST or GST, which is applied to other products like natural health products that don't have a DIN. There are some arguments—not that we would agree with them—th

Finance committee  From my understanding, in Germany it's not an authorized medication through their normal pathways. Medical cannabis is available through pharmacies on the basis of a doctor's prescription, and it is mandated to be covered for those who are on disability or welfare programs, so th

Finance committee  It is an extremely low percentage. The 269,000 Canadians who are using cannabis for medical purposes are doing so on the authorization of their health care providers, but that's not prescription of medical cannabis. There are very few products on the market that are considered pr

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. Today, already 60% of medical cannabis patients can't afford their medicine because it's not covered by insurers, but it's also because of a very unfair GST/HST that no other medications that must have authorization by a doctor are subject to. That said, this ne

Finance committee  Sure. On the first question of prescription versus over-the-counter cannabis, Bill C-45 proposes that the medical cannabis system as it stands today, as described by Cannabis Canada and Hydropothecary, largely continue as is, moving into legalization. This will mean a medical ca

Finance committee  Yes, we at Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana were consulted by Finance. We also reached out to members across all parties, to senators, as well as to different bureaucrats in different departments. With that said, I think the consultation was not as effective as we

Finance committee  I would absolutely agree, in the sense that this excise tax is using patients to build this new legalized program. Patients have already been suffering with the continued application of GST/HST. That situation means that six out of 10 Canadians who use cannabis for medical purpos

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair, and to the standing committee, for the invitation to appear here today. My name is Jonathan Zaid. I'm the Founder of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana, commonly known as CFAMM. I'm a medical cannabis patient myself. I will introduce CFAMM briefly,