An Argument for the
Personal Growth of Medical Marijuana
At some
point in the not too far distant future, the price of my Medical Marijuana is going to reach a level where it is too
costly to buy. Twelve years of mismanagement of the Marihuana Medical Access Program
has resulted in the current situation where the Harper government will
either have to complete the Revision of the Marihuana Medical Access
Regulations or Legalize Marijuana and somehow control its production. A
resolution is going to take years to arrive.
My name is
Blaine Barrett and I’m a resident of Surrey, BC and a Licensee of the Marihuana
Medical Access Program. I’m a Senior citizen on fixed income, married and
supporting my wife of 50 years. I work part time as a Security Guard to augment
a break even income situation. I suffer from double depression: I’m dysthymic
with sporadic Major Depressive incidents, a buggered-up back and, next to
finances and survival, I need my pot. I can’t get high and haven’t in years, I
need my pot to just function normally.
The problem
I have with any future price increase is the inability to buy an adequate
supply. At this current time I have great difficulty an affording it, but I had
a Designated Grower who sold to me for $100/oz. basically production cost.
Notice the HAD. He is giving
up after seven years as a compassionate grower and against his will, but fears
of the Surrey Posse Comitatus and bankruptcy by Reparations if discovered. He’s
stopped growing now but fortunately he has some in reserve, and provides just
me now, (his other guy died). He won’t run out until Christmas. I can’t afford
street, I decided to grow my own legally so I contacted Surrey City Hall.
I obtained
a copy of the City of Surrey Medical
Marihuana Production License Application Form, the Controlled Substance Property Bylaw 2006 No
15820 and the Surrey Medical Marijuana Production and Licensing Regulation By-law, 2011, No.
17410 almost recoiled at the hostility, bias and
distortions of the truth that has prompted the last one, No. 17410. Together they constitute a barrier that is
impossible for me to surmount. The City of Surrey is prejudicially restricting me from
exercising a right that is legal on both Federal and Provincial jurisdictions.
So why can’t I surmount it?
There are 6 problem areas to be considered
1. Cost:
2. Complexity of technical and planning requirements
3. Unnecessary escalation of costs
4. Distortion of fact and bias in presentation.
5. Out of date.
6.
Discrimination in location bias
To deal
with each in order:
1. Costs
Costs are the primary obstacle that has resulted in the ruination of the Marihuana Medical Access Program.
The origin of these problems was at the beginning of the Program. No consideration of whether the
client base could afford that price was given and they lost money hand over
fist. Considering that the purchasing capacity of the program rested with a
mostly sick, old, disabled, unemployable bunch of paupers, failure was
unavoidable and it’s been a dead loss history for the past ten years.
At the
inception of the Marihuana Medical Access
Program Health Canada granted Prairie Plant Products a
no-bid contract to for a Single strain of pot and set the price to buy it at
$5/gram + taxes. No consideration of whether the client base could afford that
price was given and they lost money hand over fist. Considering that the
purchasing capacity of the program rested with a mostly sick, old, disabled,
unemployable bunch of paupers, failure was unavoidable. in 2001 they set the
price for medical marijuana at $5 per gram or $150/ounce and has not been
increased.
The
majority of Licensees couldn’t afford it then and still can’t considering the
rise in the poverty level over the pas ten years
I have a small allowance for Medical
Marijuana, (2 grams/day) and that monthly dosage will still cost
$350+taxes +++ from Health Canada. I can’t pay the full amount. There
is no other legal source because Health Canada couldn’t be bothered to set up a
distribution system. There is no recourse; you buy small amounts off the
street. The only other source is Personal or Designated Growth and here we are.
The
majority of all Licensees are individuals’ dependant on fixed pension income
from the Government. Licensees are all sick, retired, disabled, or one of the
very few still able to earn an income. i.e. These individuals only have OAS and
CPP as income. The maximum possible income is available only to a retired
recipient who is collecting maximum OAS of $537.97 and is so physically
destroyed by illness to qualify for the maximum CPP Disability of $1,153.37.
These fortunate individuals qualify for $1691.34/month before tax and almost
make it to the poverty line: Almost but not quite.
The "poverty
line" for a single person living in a major city in 2007 was
$21,666 or $1805/month (before tax) as defined by Statistics Canada. We now
have 5 more years of inflation and financial crises impact to consider and the
"poverty line" has risen to level never before seen. Given the need
to buy groceries or pot (with almost 25% of your income) it doesn’t take a
great deal of brains to conclude that physical survival trumps relief of
symptoms. Symptoms are non-life threatening; Starvation isn’t.
Legalization
will not help but will compound our problem. Legalization and taxation will of
necessity result in a cost increase simply because of the expense of adding the
overhead of regulatory compliance and reporting to the actual cost of
production. To this inflated base cost, now add the growers and distributors
greed and profit incentives an increase is unavoidable.
The only way a Licensee can obtain a supply at anywhere near
an affordable level is via the Personal and Designated Growth options. The
Federal Government seems determined to eliminate these. They can try but if
they continue to classify Marijuana as a controlled substance, they must continue to provide an exemption
and a source of supply for those who qualify for Medical Marijuana. That has
been established as a right as a result of constitutional and Charter
challenges that have succeeded against the current Governments’ biased and
prejudiced attitude and actions. Their warped interpretation of “Harm
Reduction” in the context of controlled substance use is the proposed mandatory
incarceration for growing more than six plants.
2.
Complexity of technical and planning requirements
The City of Surrey Medical
Marihuana Production License Application Form, requires the submission
of 8 sets of plans for Personal, growing for yourself
- Floor
- Ventilation plan
- Prevention of harmful mould plan
- Remediation plan
- Security and lighting plan
- Electrical, lighting & equipment plan
- electrical distribution plan & demand load
- Storage plan
- Disposal plan
Three more if you are a Designated Grower growing for someone else:
- Delivery plan
- Security camera use and placement plan
- Neighbourhood responsibility plan
To add insult to injury; the duplication of a Criminal Record Check for a
grower is stupid. He just had to have a clean one in order to get the Health
Canada License to Photocopy to submit ref Application requirement Number two:
another unnecessary $75 Cost.
I am probably a typical applicant in that I have minimal knowledge of
drafting or construction. Remediation for what? I have no idea what improbable
possible crimes I might be committing because I haven’t completed a course
regarding the 6 Bylaws I’m supposed to interpret.
·
Cultivation and
Production of Medical Marijuana Bylaw, No. 17410
·
Zoning Bylaw, No. 12000
·
Controlled Substance
Property Bylaw, 2006, No. 15820
·
Surrey Electrical Safety Bylaw, 2004, No. 15596
·
Surrey Plumbing Bylaw, 1981, No. 6569
·
Surrey Building Bylaw, 1987, No. 9011
3.
Unnecessary escalation of costs
The whole
process of inspection and its’ severity is the determination of one single
individual City Employee. There is no reason an applicant should trust the
decision of a City Inspector who will follow the hostile approach laid out in
the Bylaw. As I read the Bylaw, as soon as he finds one marijuana plant in the
house it is determined to be a Grow-Op and punitive action is arbitrary under
Section 5.2. As such it is his sole
determination whether layer upon layer of fees and fines applies. If he thinks there might be any number
of flaws he can order an inspection for each. It costs the city nothing because
the applicant is required to pay $643 for any Inspection by a Technical
expert regardless of the outcome. and as per the definition for “Hazard” under
Section 3.1 there are eight possibilities. To further add insult to injury, if
there are no violations found by these eight experts, their reports have to be
approved by some other expert with even higher qualifications before releasing
the premises so residency can be resumed,
Add up the
possible fees starting with $3920 for First Inspection + a possible 8 x $643 =
$5144 depending on the First Inspectors of paranoia at the first inspection. As
a final deterrent add $343 Service Fee plus a no limit
number of services the City can arbitrarily levy for whatever they decide is a
Service.
4. Distortion of fact and bias in
presentation.
The City of Surrey Medical Marihuana
Production License Application Form is misnamed
It should be named
City of Surrey Marihuana Production License
Application Form
It has nothing to do with Medical
Marihuana.
It has been designed, by intention or Murphy’s Law, to prevent the growth
of large quantities of legal marijuana. As I see it the only applicant
who could legally apply, even now, would be a holder of a Federal Commercial
Medical Marihuana Production and Distribution License (if ever they get
around to creating one): An optimistically stupid Millionaire who expects to
make a profit.
There are
two completely different modes of cultivation to be considered:
- Commercial scale production for resale, and
- Small scale Personal production for use as a medication.
The Bylaw
is designed to eliminate or minimize “hazards”. Any hazards connected to
marijuana growth are directly related to shortcomings in the physical
construction of the production facility, negligence in safe operating
procedures, or in the disposal of waste products. The difference in the
potential to pose hazards between the two methods is astronomical. The bylaw is
designed for and suitable for the degree of hazard posed by a commercial
operation. They have the resources and finances to afford the expense of
complying with the bylaw. At the point of applying for a License they can
actually come up with the $3700 application fee and have the resources to then
pay for the creation of a bylaw compliant grow op. Now add to that the high
cost of the physical growth system: Lights, pumps, timers, and fans (all state
of the art), controlled by automatic system: enabling long periods without a
physical operator to minimize labour content.
Commercial
production involves the growth of a maximum amount of plants for the available
space. These are force fed chemicals and utilize techniques designed to
maximize the rate of growth, the potency and the output of large quantities of
marijuana. If the operation is illegal it is probably slapped together with
little regard for anything but how fast the first crop is going to come. The
construction is the source of hazards: electrical, fire, and safety, all stem
from negligence or ignorance of even minimum construction standards. The room
is sealed; humidity is kept high and is full of carbon dioxide to promote
growth creating a perfect environment for mould. There also are large volumes
of waste nutrient to dispose of, as well as excess greenery from the trimming
and harvesting. By and large the Bylaw is directed at those operations that
involve intimate contact with and modifications to the “Premises” i.e. the room
it’s grown in. A personal grow operation can avoid that problem completely.
Personal
growth operations are markedly dissimilar and in order of magnitude miniscule
by comparison. The purpose is not quantity but quality. A large personal
grow is about 15 plants (a 3 gm./day quantity)
that are coddled and cared for on a daily basis. If contained in a
properly constructed space that is isolated from the external environment, there
are no hazards and the only by-products are brownies and the occasional gallon
of excellent lawn and garden fertilizer.
5- The Bylaws are Out of date.
The biggest
problem with the whole bylaw is that it is based on old data and obsolete ideas.
It has no provision to recognize the sophistication, reduction in grow size
possible or the containment of grow ops in sealed environments. Every hazard
listed by the bylaw is related to contact and contamination of the “Premises”
and environment by the grow operation or it’s by products: a commercial size
operation cannot help but contact and contaminate some way or another.
That is not
so with personal growth but the bylaw makes no provision for that. Having a
safe code compliant grow operation doesn’t count. It should. That is the reason
I am here.
Posing no
hazard is not a solution to the problem. There is no recognition that with
technical advances I can now construct a Code Compliant Grow Op and run it safely
in a box the size of a small freezer. It’s really no big deal to make a sealed
airtight box with 4 internal compartments and install the necessary hardware
components for a Mother plant, her clones, their growth stage and a ripening compartment.
There are already commercially produced Gro Boxes that meet or exceed safety requirements
already on the market. Two of these are shown in Appendix #1.
One of the
manufacturers of hydroponic grow systems is right here in Surrey and makes an excellent product.
This unit is large enough to grow 9 plants and supply about two, possibly three
patients or customers. It’s got a price tag of $3600 but given the output its
well worth the price. I wanted to show you a sample to get approval before a
purchase, but understandably the manufacturers didn’t feel quite comfortable associating
with a rabble rouser like me. Given a simple set of plans and a source of
selected grow equipment, an equally safe “homemade” Grow Container” about half
the size can be for less than half the cost. We take all the hazards and
confine them to a box.
Even if I
could get a Bloombox approved as conforming to all the Bylaws, unfortunately
now we run into the discriminatory aspects of the case.
We
are now at the point of going to City Hall and asking for approval of either a
set of plans for, or an already constructed grow op. and now we run into one
final barrier.
6. Discrimination
If
somehow I managed to get past all the obstacles I run into a final barrier that
is discriminatory. I can’t grow it at home where I want, have to now go to a
Commercial or industrial area and pay for rent, a separate hydro account, the owner’s
permission and a compulsory invasion by the owner to make sure I’m being a good
boy. I resent the fact that this city refuses to let me grow a legal crop, no
different than tomatoes, just because it is labelled a Controlled Substance.
- Controlled or not, I have a License to grow it.
- I want to do it in my place of residence.
- I have a perfectly safe Code Compliant operation in which to do it. A Grow Box
- The Bylaw is discriminatory: it restricts my ability to grow a crop that I am legally entitled to grow simply because my crop is named “Marijuana”.
I
resent the fact that the City automatically assumes that I am not worthy of
trust and sets up a control that invades my privacy in order to ensure that I
am not lying about staying in compliance. There is a presumption of criminal
propensity. I very much pride my
reputation for honesty. The bylaw assumes that by applying for a permit I am untrustworthy,
a liar or felon who has to be checked up on, they require a Criminal Records
Check for which the RCMP now charges $75. What irritates me off more is that
the city is too cheap to pay for a quarterly inspection by an employee and
orders my landlord to do it no charge. Why would any owner rent to me given the
Part 5- Responsibilities of Owners section of the Bylaw? I wouldn’t! Any
accidental minor mistake on my part makes him subject to the judgement of a
Bylaw Department that is demonstrably biased and hostile.
Where
does the city come off telling me that if I need a puff of my medication I have
to go off public property and out of sight? Where does the city come off
handing out penalties for my illegal activities? Things like growing too much
or trafficking. As I understand it, matters of that nature are Federal Crimes
and other than reporting the offences now the City wants a finder’s fee to
profit from it: that’s double jeopardy. The whole approach and attitude towards
me is simply stupid and an arrogant display of a lack of common sense. There is
no consideration of me, my rights, my privacy, or my reputation. The
municipality apparently can assume the power of probably handing out fines to
criminals as secondary punishment for committing the crime in the sacred premises
of the municipality. Just more
“NOT IN MY BACK YARD”!
In Conclusion: A Request
for Assistance
Has
anybody in the whole Municipal community even considered that maybe these are actually
poor unfortunates who need help?
Medical
Marijuana Licensees who want to grow their own supply of pot are not the enemy
but residents in your community that need help and your help is needed. The
system on which we are depending has become a circus about legalization and regulation.
I want you at City level to get to the truth, empathize, understand, and
exercise some common sense by permitting exceptions, or making another Bylaw
specifically for small scale Personal Growth
I would
like simply to get you all to see a Personal Growth applicant as somebody who
needs help. He’s asking you for some. Why not try giving him some assistance?
He’s in an impossible bind right now. He can’t afford his medication and he
needs it.
To suggest a few things that you might consider when
assessing the problem.
- Waive the upfront inspection and fees. For cripes sake he recognizes the hazards and doesn’t want to create one. He’s volunteering and punitive measures are not called for.
- If he has a plan or a Grow Op, criticize it and correct it. If he doesn’t, help him design one, or better yet, have a pre-approved plan ready for a Small scale Grow Op for no more than 25 plants.
- Monitor his progress and advise when in error.
- Forget the banning of a residence zoning. There’s no threat if you have approved the plan and its construction. All that is needed is a box about the size of a large freezer. It’s only connection to the premises that is the space it takes up and an electric wall plug.
That
pretty much ends my argument. At this point I have no idea what happens next. I
have requested Council to allow me participate in any decision making process
that will follow. I’m the one on the receiving end and I want my input heard.
I presented
this Argument to Surrey City Council today. I will wait for their response
before making any more comments regarding this matter.
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