Growing industry of medical marijuana creates sticky situations
Health Canada's new medical marijuana regulations will come into effect by the end of spring — and commercial marijuana production licences could be issued as early as the summer. Is Toronto ready?
RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR
Sam Mellace wants to be the first regulated medicinal marijuana distributor in Canada. He's opened a clinic on the Danforth near Pape and hopes to be serving up legalized marijuana by 2014.Medical marijuana growing will soon make its official move from residential basements to large-scale commercial production, with producers able to get licences as early as the summer — but the transition is already creating sticky situations as municipalities ready themselves.
Would-be producers are hunting for buildings to house their grow-ops which are tempting revenue and job generators for cities and towns but difficult to position to the satisfaction of residents concerned about everything from the smell to security.
Take the town of MacTier in Muskoka where plans to convert a beloved downtown community centre into a grow-op is riling residents ahead of a public meeting Saturday. It’s not so much the grow-op they oppose as the loss of community space, they say. And the location, next to a school, is just not the place for a facility with the stringent security required by the proposed Health Canada regulations.
A better site is the former Millbrook Correctional Centre southwest of Peterborough, which is seeing interest from commercial marijuana producers on a weekly basis, said Scott McFadden, Cavan Monaghan township’s deputy mayor.
The facility could include a research partnership with Trent University and even a biodigester to supply green energy to the area, he said.
“The community has been very positive. It’s a great opportunity to bring in (more than 100) local jobs and property tax revenue,” said McFadden, noting the proposal has not yet gone before council.
“One of the reasons that so many companies have been coming forward to us is that we’ve been so open to having these discussions. . . . I think some other municipalities may be struggling with it. It’s a politically sensitive topic.”
Debate over where the grow-ops can go has yet to reach Toronto. The city says it has not received any notification of applications for licences to grow marijuana for research and development purposes, a step taken by many producers in preparation for production licence applications.
However, at least one person, Sam Mellace of the New Age Medical Clinic on the Danforth, has publicly expressed interest.
No research and development licences have actually been granted since applicants have yet to meet the requirements, said Jeannine Ritchot, director of Health Canada’s medical marijuana regulatory reform.
But there is “significant interest” in both research and production, she added.
The Health Canada regulations include no limits to the yield of a commercial grow-op as long as it has commensurate security plans. But the grow-ops will be subject to provincial laws and municipal bylaws, Ritchot added.
“These producers may have to obtain some kind of municipal licensing . . . then the city will have the opportunity to focus on all the health and safety issues to make sure there is full compliance so that the community is not compromised in any way whatsoever,” suggested Councillor Cesar Palacio, head of the municipal licensing and standards committee.
“To the question of location, we’d have to look at zoning provisions. To what extent will these operations be close to an elementary school, a daycare or a place of worship?”
The first step — which could be achieved through a motion Councillor Mark Grimes brings to council next week — is setting up a registry of all legal grow-ops in the city, said Palacio.
“The proposed regulations require law enforcement and fire and the municipality to be notified (by commercial producers), so we know what’s happening, their address, who is behind these things. That’s something unprecedented and huge in potential benefit . . . we don’t know where medical marijuana growers are at this point,” he said.
City staff are waiting on the final version of the Health Canada regulations before writing a report on the impacts of commercial grow-ops requested by council last November. It’s too early to say when that report might be presented to council.
In Maple Ridge, B.C., the city is taking a more proactive approach, proposing a bylaw that limits grow-ops to agricultural zones amid blowback from residents who say the proposed bylaw is still not strict enough.
However, Paul Lewin, a high-profile marijuana issues lawyer, says municipalities are needlessly overreacting.
“When you read over the new rules, there is absolutely nothing to worry about, it’s so highly regulated,” said Lewin. “It’s just more of the nasty stigma from 100 years of negative messaging. . . . Whenever I hear municipalities griping about this I don’t even know what they are talking about.”
But cities aren’t the only ones bracing for the brave new world of commercial marijuana production. An Ontario-wide union based in Woodbridge for medical marijuana growers, suppliers and patients launched on Thursday.
Medicinal Cannabis Employees Union Local 1 has nearly 400 members and hopes to reach 7,000 by the end of the year.
“We’re there to work with (growers and municipalities) in the transition period between the old and the new regulations,” said union head Tony Sergi. “We want to remove the stigma around grow-ops and . . . make it a dignified industry to be a part of.”
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