CANNABIS CULTURE - Health Canada has changed medical marijuana regulations to allow the production and distribution of marijuana oil and fresh bud. Find out what the new rules actually mean for patients.

1) I heard Health Canada just legalized cannabis cooking oil. What’s going on?

As a result of a recent Supreme Court decision, Health Canada has just announced that they will be allowing licensed medical marijuana producers (LPs) to also apply for a license to sell fresh, uncured cannabis buds, and cannabis-infused oils. However, LPs cannot sell extracts like hash, resin oil or shatter, or infused food products.

2) Why fresh cannabis buds? Won’t those just go moldy during shipping to patients?

Most residents agree with the City of Vancouver’s recent decision to approve new regulations for marijuana dispensaries.

Vancouver, BC – The notion of legalizing and taxing marijuana is very popular in British Columbia, although concerns over an increase in cases of impaired driving persists, a new Insights West poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative sample of British Columbian adults, two thirds of residents (67%) say they support the legalization of marijuana in Canada, including 72% of those aged 18-to-34 and 77% of Vancouver Island residents.

One of the most popular topics on the 2015 elections agenda is legalization and cannabis is by far the most widely used illegal drug in the Canada. The interplay between potential legalization models and our current federal medical cannabis system, the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), is important because it will probably shape the direction legalization takes in Canada. Our federal system is unique globally and over one year later, has some important big name interests vested within.

SMITHS FALLS, ON, July 8, 2015 /CNW/ - Tweed Marijuana Inc. ("TMI" or "the Company"), parent company of Tweed Inc. ("Tweed") and Tweed Farms Inc. ("Tweed Farms") is pleased to announce that pursuant to notification received today from Health Canada, licensed producers such as Tweed and Tweed Farms will be eligible to produce and sell cannabis oils pending the necessary inspections and approvals from Health Canada.

Until today the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) only allowed for the sale of dried cannabis flower. With the addition of cannabis oils to the regulatory framework, Tweed will be able to significantly increase its product offering to provide a more diverse variety for practitioners and patients.

Health Canada announced today in a group call with all Licensed Producers that the regulatory agency are immediately issuing a section 56 exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), which will allow licensed producers to produce and sell “cannabis oil and fresh marijuana buds and leaves in addition to dried marijuana”.

By Margaret Wenet, Globe & Mail

Last year, the federal government spent $5.2-million on medical marijuana for Canada’s veterans. This year it will spend a lot more. Marijuana is a popular way to relieve the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and some veterans swear it saved their lives. Now consultation services designed to hook up vets with pot are spreading across the country. Marijuana for Trauma, founded by former Canadian Forces member Fabian Henry, has already helped hundreds of veterans in Atlantic Canada and is now expanding to Ontario. “I’m expecting thousands to be coming through the door in the coming years,” he told the CBC.

It is now legal for medical marijuana users to consume other forms of the drug beyond the traditional dried version. Health Canada has implemented new rules that follow a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.

However the Harper government still is upset at the decision, and warns of potential problems.

“They will implement what the Supreme Court has said in their court imposed marijuana for medicinal purposes program,” Health Minister Rona Ambrose told reporters. “But their first top of line message is, marijuana is not a medicine, it’s not an approved medicine.”

Medical marijuana advocate and chair of Oshawa's medical marijuana working group Marko Ivancicevic smokes a joint at his Pickering home. Ivancicevic says Oshawa is ahead of many other municipalities on the issue of medical marijuana, but there is still more work to be done.

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express 

Marko Ivancicevic isn’t afraid to admit that he’s a regular marijuana smoker. Whether the former Oshawa resident is smoking in the garage of his new Pickering home or in public, Ivancicevic isn’t bashful of smoking an illegal substance.

Except for him, the substance isn’t illegal – he has a prescription.

This morning (July 15) at 11 a.m. Health Canada held a conference call with medical marijuana producers to say oil can now be used.

“This is a big thing for a lot of Canadian families,” said Sebastien St-Louis, CEO of Hydropothecary, who was in on the call. “Medical marijuana has just gotten a little bit more medical today.”

Among the Canadian families affected is the McKnights of West Carleton. Mandy has fought for years for her six-year-old son to have the legal right to ingest medical marijuana in ways other than smoking.

“Gosh, I just got wind of it. I’m shocked but in a good way,” she said from her parents’ home in Newfoundland. “I thought with the election coming that they would sit on it. How amazing is that?”

Conservative government's resistance to marijuana oil up in smoke following Supreme Court ruling

Health Canada is clarifying its rules for licensed medical marijuana producers to allow them to produce and sell cannabis oil, as well as fresh buds and leaves, following a Supreme Court decision that lets patients use pot derivatives.

Health Minister Rona Ambrose had initially said she was outraged by the Supreme Court of Canada decision, which lets patients consume marijuana, not just smoke it. The government had tried to limit medical pot use to dried marijuana only.

But the ruling left a grey area with producers being limited under the law to selling dried forms of marijuana even though patients were allowed to consume other forms.