Canada Legalizes Marijuana Oils and Foods for Medical Use

Canada regulated cannabis cultivation for medical purposes more than a year ago, a measure that was warmly welcomed by the country’s citizens: over the first few months, the Ministry of Health received an average of 25 requests per week from people hoping to obtain the necessary authorisation to plant.

Now, the Canadian Supreme Court, has gone even further, and has backed the legality of any form of marijuana that is used for medical purposes, in addition to the consumption of cannabis smoking. As such, the maximum judicial authority in the country has given its approval to foods and oils that contain marijuana.

Cookies, chocolate bars, brownies, resins, oils or tea extractions containing cannabis will be allowed from now onwards in Canada as, according to the Supreme Court, restricting its use solely to dry marijuana “violates the rights to freedom and safety in an arbitrary manner”.

Following the decision, sections 4 and 5 of the Law on Drugs and Controlled Substances–which prohibited the possession and selling of cannabis that was not in a dry form–have been repealed. The Supreme Court is thus corroborating the ruling by the courts in the province of British Colombia, which already demonstrated that this prohibition went against the right of patients to consume marijuana in the form they wish to.

The federal government have been very dismayed by the decision of the Supreme Court: Rona Ambrose, the Health Minister declared that she was “angry". Someone who is “proud and happy” with the decision is Owen Smith, the defendant in the court case ruling. Owen is a worker at the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club (a club that provides its members with medical marijuana); he possessed more than 200 cookies and 26 bottles of liquids, including cannabis massage oils, which led to him being accused of illegal possession of the plant. The judge from the court of first instance in British Colombia decided to acquit Owen and the State decided to bring the case before the Supreme Court, who again ruled in his favour.