More Health Canada Distortion of Facts - The Criminal
Element
June17,
2011Minister Aglukkaq stated "Our Government is very concerned that the
current Marihuana Medical Access Program is open to abuse and exploitation by
criminal elements,". Of greatest concern was the predicted explosion of huge
volumes of legally grown pot into the coffers of Hells Angels.
This is an
extension of last years reasoning for the regulatory change limiting the size
of any grow op to 4 licences. They were afraid criminal elements would
infiltrate, corrupt, make the volume of legal grows explode uncontrollably.
This would be funny if it wasn’t just
stupid given the size of the current disparity in production volumes viz.:
Medical Marihuana is of pitiful insignificance compared to the street volume.
As of the start of 2010 there were
3500 licenses to grow outstanding:
Month
|
Possess
|
Gain
|
Personal-Use
|
Gain
|
Designated-Person
|
Gain
|
Marihuana Buyers
|
January 3,
2010
|
4884
|
91
|
2822
|
40
|
754
|
45
|
795
|
2515
|
1198
|
For argument sake
Per Health Canada: Avg. use
less than 5 g/day (a hefty dose) but we want to overestimate
1 gram/day = 1 oz. / month = allows 5
plants to be grown. Using the 5 g/day
dose the maximum estimated allowed growth per license is 25 plants
If every one of the licensed growers
grew the maximum 25 plants allowed by license the result is a drop in the
bucket.
The Maximum Annual Legal Production.
3500
legal growers x 5 oz/month x 12 months = 210,000 oz./annum =13,125 lb. = 6.5+
tons
By comparison, as long ago as 2005, Toronto and York Regional Police
both estimated there may be 50,000 grow-ops across the
country: as many as 20,000 in Ontario, 15,000 in the Vancouver
area, with significant numbers in Quebec as well.
That was 6 years ago and that number
has already exploded and no one knows how large illegal growth is in Canada. It’s all a
wild ass guess by experts? The 50,000 number that was so alarming has grown
exponentially as shown by the most recent disclosure by the database of the
RCMP's Marijuana Grow Initiative.
According to the RCMP Web posting of
its Grow Locations they were reporting 153 grow ops they have raided in the
past year had an estimated yield of 120001 plants = 60 tons of pot. In addition
during the three weeks from Sept 14 to Oct
7, 2011 Police in 4 cities (Campbellton, Cornwall, Toronto, Calgary) raided 50
grow ops with 43495 plants for an additional 21 tons of pot.
These most recent busts of 250 grow
ops represent 84 tons of Illegal pot as compared to the Maximum Annual Legal Output
of 6.5 tons. That represents less than 8% of the total seized pot from only
half the country. If the national number of grow ops is anywhere near the
predicted 50,000, the resulting National Illegal grow amount adds up to 16,800
tons against which the Marihuana Medical Maximum Annual Legal Output represents
less than one tenth of one percent.
Conclusion: The threat of Criminal
infiltration of the Personal and Designated Grow operations as posited by
Health Canada is a complete
crock of shit.
Health Canada has
permitted, in fact encouraged, the Criminal takeover of the whole Medical
Marihuana Market by its inaction and lack of enforcement and control over what
has been developing over the past ten years.
Stephen’s now arranging to prosecute
future growers so he can fill all those unneeded jail cells and justify the
expense.
