Cannabis users lobby for food products
Maintaining access to edible marijuana products was a key concern when about 250 people turned up at city hall this week to hear about proposed regulations for about 30 medical marijuanarelated businesses in Victoria. Only four are licensed. The proposal to limit food products that can be sold at the businesses to tinctures, capsules or edible oils has drawn considerable reaction, said City of Victoria staff member Shannon Craig.
“We know that businesses currently sell oils, baked goods, candies, other food products containing marijuana, and that there certainly are some benefits to customers that ingest products via food,” she said.
Craig said concerns over edible products centred around labelling and packaging, which can vary from place to place. That can lead to dosages being over-estimated or accidental ingestion of products, she said.
Kate Dalgleish, whose Green Mountain Consulting specializes in guiding marijuana-related businesses, said her company has spoken with most of Victoria’s dis- pensaries. “What they said about the edibles is that it comprises a huge amount of their sales,” she said. “The patients require and use edibles on a very large scale.
“So a lot of people that can’t use inhaled marijuana products and need these controlled, regulated, low-grade, low-psychoactive edible products can deal especially with chronic pain or with terminal issues.”
Many people don’t have the knowledge to make their own cookies or brownies or other such products, Dalgleish said.
“And they can’t make consistent products, so there’s a risk of creating overdose issues.”
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said the turnout for the meeting was impressive and there was a lot of quality feedback for council. She said the city should “just remain silent on the issue” of edibles “It’s really Island Health that regulates the food industry,” Helps said.
The mayor said she was struck by one dispensary owner saying that his most-prevalent clients are 50- to 70-year-old women who are in chronic pain and using edible products.
“I was also really impressed by a number of people in the indus- try wanting regulations, to make it more fair and equitable.”
James Whitehead of the Gorge Cannabis Dispensary said he would like to see more emphasis on “daylighting” the supply chain for marijuana — bringing it out into the open so the quality can be more effectively controlled.
He said he has to obtain marijuana “in a clandestine format.”
Proposed regulations discussed at the meeting include: • No one under 19 can be on the premises. • No marijuana use allowed on site. • Odour-control systems must be used. • Marijuana businesses must be at least 200 metres from schools and other medical-marijuana operations. • Limit hours to 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. • Charge an annual licence fee of between $4,000 and $5,000.
Craig said input from the session, the results of an online survey and written submissions will be reviewed, with recommendations being presented to council in April. A final report will be givenin May.
The online survey is available until March 4 at victoria.ca.