Cannabis and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

[agoodwinsmith]

While cruelly barred from using ibruprofen, I, of course, researched other pain-relief options, and CBD seems to be worth trying. Right now this can be accessed in Canada from an approved medical provider - as long as the patient has the correct approval from a doctor (we apparently cannot call it a prescription, but the doctor needs to diagnose and determine dosage - go figure). So, I found a medical provider who has products I would like to try.

I sent them an email asking them whether or not, once recreational cannabis is legal (FCVOL), a person can purchase their products, or if they will still be considered medical products requiring a doctor's recommendation. They replied that they don't yet know.

So. BC knows that they want tax revenue from the sale of recreational cannabis, but they don't know whether or not currently functioning and compliant providers can sell to a wider audience. Summer is nearly over, and 17 October 2018 is a little more than 2 months away.

Oh well, eh?

Comments

[ranunculus]

Interesting. While in Vancouver I walked into a shop, filled out some paperwork and proceeded to purchase some CBD tincture. No doctor's recommendation needed, though they did ask if I'd used similar products and at what dosage. I said yes to the first and "I don't know" to the second, because we tend to be told the number of drops to use, not ml (they said to start with 10ml and work up). Once I walked out no one paid any attention at all to the little bottle in my fanny-pack, and no one ever even looked at the 2oz pot of CBD ointment in my luggage.

[agoodwinsmith]

Technically illegal.

I can't find it now, because info is changing second to second on gov't websites, but there was a very clear statement on a BC gov't website that current retail (dispenseries) stores in BC were/are illegal.

This hasn't stopped municipalities from selling business licences, but those business licences don't stop pot dispenseries from getting raided every ten minutes. And the business licence terms and conditions can be changed any time and as often as city council meets.

Also, if you do not have the appropriate document when checked by police, also technically illegal (https://www.cannafarms.ca/faq/ - see "prove medication legal" FAQ there)

I doubt, while you are travelling in Canada, that any one will check your stuff - unless they have stopped you for something else and need a reason to hold you.

Again, technically illegal to take controlled substances from one province to another, but immediate personal use amounts are usually exempt.

I would strongly recommend not taking those products across the Canada US border, though.

[ranunculus]

It is legal in California and Alaska. At the San Francisco Airport, if Federal authorities find otherwise legal cannabis products in your possession, the Feds have to call local authorities to deal with it. Local police shrug and offer to store the stuff to be picked up on your return if the Feds won't let you through. The Feds have more or less given up. I suspect it would be the same at the Alaska border. At the border crossing we went through, we handed our passports out the car window, said that we were going to visit family (true) and they waved us through.

[agoodwinsmith]

People are very twitchy here, and the dispenseries are constantly being raided.

It sounds like Calgary is going to be imminently sane and practical about it: they are permitting grocery stores to carry recreational cannabis. :)

[agoodwinsmith]

Because I can never leave well-enough alone, here's a CBC story about whether or not items sold in Dispensaries have CBD:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-marijuana-thc-cbd-legalization-1.3861144

Essentially: no detectable CBD found, even in strains advertised as having CBD. Currently no regulation about contents of products in medical marijuana. I doubt there will be regulations about contents of recreational cannabis for years to come. Attitude is cynically "Caveat Emptor" and all that.

Under the subtitle "Buying Pot on the Spot" is this line, just above the video: "Marijuana dispensaries in Canada are operating illegally, but are widespread."

[ranunculus]

That is the nice thing about legal products. They do have to prove content...
Have no idea if the product I got actually had CBD, but it did seem to work.