Photo by The Canadian Press Images/Lars Hagberg

After decades of court battles that won chronically ill patients the right to use cannabis as medicine, many wonder whether the impending legalization of recreational pot will trample over the progress they’ve made. A government group tasked with creating a framework for legalizing and regulating cannabis published its report in November 2016. Among the suggestions is that medical marijuana be taxed equally with recreational use, and the medical cannabis system be revisited with an eye to phase it out in five years.

But most patient advocates believe this is short-sighted.

“People who are quite sick, who have not found relief elsewhere, to force them to pay potentially premium taxation on these products—for doctor-prescribed medicine—doesn’t make any sense,” says Ronan Levy, lawyer and director of Canadian Cannabis Clinics.

Jonathan Zaid agrees. Director of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana, he says it’s unfair medical cannabis be subject to taxes, despite tax code exemptions for prescription drugs. “Patients need measures to help with affordability,” he adds, pointing out that even now many struggle to afford it.

Though it’s uncertain where the new recommendations will lead, medical cannabis users aren’t just worried about affordability. Some fear full legalization could steer research away from the unique strains medical users need, or that a disappearing medical cannabis system could leave patients stuck purchasing at high cost from dispensaries not designed for them.

Trina Fraser, an Ottawa-based lawyer who is counsel for the Canadian National Medical Marijuana Association, puts it simply: If cannabis is being used for medical purposes, it should be done under the care of a physician.

Many doctors are hesitant to prescribe, being in the uncomfortable position of gatekeepers for a substance they don’t understand.

One solution many patients are advocating for is giving cannabis extracts a DIN (a Health Canada drug identification number) so they can be dispensed by pharmacies. This would gain many patients coverage under their drug plans, and allow doctors more comfort prescribing a substance that would be better researched and understood.

“To me it is incredibly dangerous to put people in a position where they are mixing and combining drugs without medical supervision or advice,” Fraser says, adding that tax breaks and drug plan coverage are needed. “Is a ‘budtender’ going to be qualified to tell you whether it’s okay to use cannabis in conjunction with your antidepressant?”

While the recommendations suggest keeping medical users’ needs in mind as legalization proceeds, it will be up to patients, advocates, and the public to make sure it happens.

Canadian public health officials are taking a stance on marijuana use education, instead of advocating abstinence.

As we all know, marijuana is an illegal drug in Canada, a fact unlikely to change anytime soon. But this week, a team of public health experts seem to be facing reality.

Reality being, of course, that many people in Canada are recreational marijuana users. A Health Canada survey in 2010 showed that 10.7 percent of people over 15, and 25.1 percent of youth aged 15-24 had used cannabis in the past year.

Given these facts, a set of guidelines for marijuana use have been released, endorsed by the Canadian Public Health Association. Previously, the message to Canadians has been prohibition and abstinence. The new guidelines, according to the Toronto Star, address “prevention, education, and reducing risks among users.” The guidelines will be published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

Benedikt Fischer, co-author of the guildelines and chair in applied public health at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University, told the Canadian Press that the “lower risk cannabis use guidelines” are modelled after the public health approach to alcohol consumption.

“We’re accepting the fact that this is a drug that’s out there, that people embrace, that people actually enjoy,” Fischer told the Canadian Press. “At the same time, absolutely it’s not a benign drug, it comes with a lot of acute and long-term problems that can be very hazardous and harmful to both individuals and society.”

Some of the risks higlighed in the guidelines, according to the Toronto Star‘s report, include:

“Age of use: The younger the user, the greater the risk, especially of mental illness or addiction. While most people don’t springboard to harder drugs, being young increases the odds of that happening. Researchers advise delaying use until at least (age 16) and preferably young adulthood.

Frequency of use: Daily or near daily use is linked to memory loss, cognitive problems, serious health issues and addiction, and should be avoided.

Driving: Anyone using marijuana should wait a minimum of three to four hours after consumption before driving. While public awareness around drinking and driving is huge, few people realize that marijuana impairs cognition and reflexes and acutely increases risks of car accidents.

High-risk groups: This includes pregnant women; older adults with hypertension and certain other health problems; and those with a history of psychotic symptoms themselves or in a family member.”

While these guidelines aim to bring more public awareness to marijuana use, there is some irony in this situation. Days before the release of these guidelines, the federal government introduced the Safe Streets and Communities Act ,which, among other things, has laid down stricter penalties for those convicted of growing marijuana, with jail time ranging from six months to a maximum of 14 years.

Like I said- it’s not looking like marijuana will be legal in Canada anytime soon. But if people are going to use marijuana regardless, then at least public health officials are finally recognizing the situation as it is.

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Neeta Lind.

“This is about the complete failure of democracy,” Alan Young says, munching on his strawberry-jam toast at Sunnybrook Restaurant in Toronto. Young, a criminal lawyer, has been Canada’s forerunning pot reformist since he got a judge to declare that “marijuana is relatively harmless compared to the so-called hard drugs, and including tobacco and alcohol” during his landmark 1997 case, R. v. Clay. He’s behind many of the movement’s other big achievements too: convincing the courts prohibiting pot was unconstitutional for patients under medical supervision (R. v. Parker, 2000) and winning significant, progressive changes to Canada’s Marijuana Medical Access Regulations (Hitzig v. Canada, 2003). Now, at 53, he’s preparing for the next fight: taking on Health Canada and potentially criminal law, which could effectively nullify the Conservatives’ Bill C-15.

If passed into law—it died in the senate when Parliament recessed in December 2009 but is likely to be reintroduced—Bill C-15 would send Canadians caught with more than five marijuana plants to cells for a minimum of six months. Young believes this will effectively flood the judicial system with non-violent offenders, increase an already soaring deficit, and threaten authorized, medicinal grows—especially if they’re caught growing over their limit. “The Conservatives’ legacy will be disastrous,” he says of the bill. “They’re trying to use criminal law to solve every social problem.”

So Young will wage his battle on three fronts. First, he plans to strike down MMAR seed policies preventing patients from purchasing anything other than a single, domestic strain. Then, he’ll fight to increase the grower-patient ratio (it’s currently one-to-two). Lastly, and for Young most importantly, he plans to create an impediment for raids of authorized grows by requiring an initial Health Canada inspection. Young has no illusions that the bill will be stopped—“It’ll be upheld,” he says, resignedly—but hopes these counterweights will at least make it more difficult and expensive to get into people’s homes.

Young also hopes he can press the government to reconsider the path of least resistance: legalization. “Maybe they’ll say, ‘we can’t do this, so let’s just change our criminalization policies,’” he says. It’s not such wishful thinking. Young says Health Canada has already extended an olive branch by asking for a meeting, though he’s not entirely optimistic. “It’s probably just an attempt to neutralize me,” he quips.

But he’s not entirely pessimistic, either. That’s because his fighting principle is ultimately simple: people shouldn’t be sanctioned for their consumption patterns unless there is evidence they are harmful to society. “Right now,” he says, “chances of progressing the position on prohibition could actually be better than they have been.”

The almost-bare shelves of Toronto's Pages Bookstore in its final days. Daniel Tencer writes about the plight of independent booksellers in the November-December issue of This Magazine.

The November-December 2009 issue of This Magazine is now snaking its way through the postal system, and subscribers should find it in their mailboxes any day now. We expect it to be available on newsstands next week, probably. (Remember, subscribers always get the magazine early, and you can too.) We’ll start posting articles from the issue online next week. We suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and other sweet, sweet This action.

This issue is our annual mega-hyper-awesome edition (64 pages instead of 48!), as we bring you a special supplement with the winners of the 2009 Great Canadian Literary Hunt.The winners this year were:

On the cover this month is a special package of articles we call Legalize Everything! — five writers tackle five things that should be legalized, and the activists who are fighting to make that a reality. Katie Addleman witnesses the madness of the drug trade, and the misbegotten “war on drugs” that criminalizes the mentally ill, funnels billions of black-market dollars into the pockets of narcoterrorists, and never actually reduces drug use. Tim Falconer asks our politicians to legalize physician-assisted suicide and allow Canadians to die on their own terms. Jordan Heath Rawlings meets the artists who believe that online music sharing may actually be the future of their industry, not its end. Laura Kusisto says criminalizing hate speech erodes Canadian democracy and offers no meaningful protection for minorities. And Rosemary Counter hunts down the outlaw milk farmer who wants all Canadians to have the right to enjoy unpasteurized milk, even if he has to go all the way to the supreme court to do it.

Elsewhere in the magazine, Meena Nallainathan surveys the state of Canada’s Tamil community following the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam last spring, and meets four Tamil activists who may hold some answers for rebuilding a Sri Lankan nation tormented by decades of civil war.

All that, plus James Loney on the Canadian government’s attitudes towards its citizens trapped abroad; Bruce M. Hicks on what Canada’s new Mexican and Czech visa restrictions are really about; Paul McLaughlin interviews B.C.’s Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, on the eve of his American incarceration; Dorothy Woodend on a new crop of documentaries that dissect the workings of our capitalist world; Darryl Whetter gives his picks for the must-reads of the first decade of the 21st century; Navneet Alang warns that when it comes to online charity, sometimes clicking isn’t enough; Lisa Charleyboy profiles Nadya Kwandibens and her photographic exploration of the urban Aboriginal experience, “Concrete Indians”; Aaron Cain sends a postcard from San Salvador, after a chilling meeting with some right-wing politicians on the verge of a losing election; and Jen Gerson ranks Canada’s political leaders on their Facebook and Twitter savvy.

PLUS: Daniel Tencer on the plight of independent bookstores; Sukaina Hirji on Vancouver’s Insite safe injection clinic; Lindsay Kneteman on Alberta’s Democratic Renewal Project; Melissa Wilson on getting the flu shot; Graham F. Scott on Canada’s losing war in Afghanistan; Jorge Antonio Vallejos on a remembrance campaign for Canada’s missing Aboriginal women; Jennifer Moore on an Ecuadorian village that’s suing the Toronto Stock Exchange; Cameron Tulk on Night, a new play about Canada’s far north; Andrea Grassi reviews Dr. Bonnie Henry’s Soap and Water & Common Sense; and Ellen Russell on Canadian workers’ shrinking wages.