How Do I Apply for Medical Marijuana in Canada?

[Medical Marijuana]

In July 2001, Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Health, pursuant to subsection 55(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, hereby makes the annexed Marihuana Medical Access Regulations

To begin with, you will need to obtain the forms required to apply for access to medical marijuana. You can get the forms online at

(link) in .pdf format, and print them, or you can call the Office of Cannabis Medical Access (OCMA) at 1-866-337-7705 and ask them to mail you the forms (it's free!).

There are two types of applications:

(1) Authorization to possess marijuana. Requires one form to be filled out by the applicant, and one form by their doctor.

(2) Authorization to grow your own marijuana, or to have someone else grow it for you. This will be a little bit more work, requiring a few more forms.

Your doctor will have to recommend a daily dosage of marijuana. A form of administration. The duration is 12 months unless otherwise specified.

Application conditions:

There are three categories of medical conditions which are eligible for medical marijuana. Category three is quite general however, and almost every condition could be classified there.

* There is a section to fill out what symptoms you suffer from, and what other treatments you have tried. I would recommend extensively researching the side effects and downsides of all the popular treatments, and claim to suffer from all of them.

* There is a section to choose whether you will grow your own, or designate another person to grow for you. If you will not be growing, you will need to provide the address of the person who will, whether they own the property, and if the marijuana will be stored at that location. If the property is rented, the owners permission will be required, and a form is provided for that purpose as well.

* You will also need to disclose whether the marijuana will be grown indoors, outdoors, or a combination.

* If there will be any marijuana grown outdoors, you must indicate that the property is not adjacent to any schools, play grounds, day cares, or other places frequented by persons under the age of 18.

* You must confirm that the marijuana will be stored indoors, and you must provide details about security of the production site.

* One of the last steps will be to inform the local authorities that you have obtained a license to either possess and/or grow marijuana for medical purposes.

Formulas for maximum possession / production:

Possession:
For personal possession, once you have been granted a license, the formula for maximum possession is as follows: A * 30

Where;
A = the maximum daily dosage as prescribed in your application.
(So basically, you can carry up to 30 days worth of your prescribed supply at once)

Production:
For production, plant numbers are calculated based on whether the plants will be grown fully indoors, fully outdoors, or a combination.

For production fully indoors, the maximum allowed number of plants is calculated as follows: D = [(A × 365) ÷ (B × 3C)] × 1.2

Where;
D is the maximum number of plants,
A is the maximum daily dosage as prescribed in your application,
B is equal to 30 grams, the expected yield per plant, and
C is a constant 1, representing the number of possible crops per year).

So for example, if your prescription is for (5 grams daily, multiply by 365) to get 1825 grams per year. This will be divided by (30 grams times 3 crops, which is 90) so 1825 divided by 90 equals 20, which is finally multiplied by 1.2, to equal 24.

So a prescription of 5 grams daily will mean you can grow 24 plants at once.

For production fully outside, the maximum number of plants is calculated as follows:

D = [(A × 365) ÷ (B × C)] × 1.3

(so taking into account 1 crop per year, instead of 3, you are allowed 3 times more plants. The multiplier changes from 1.2 to 1.3, so thats a few more plants for margin of error, being outside.

And for a indoor/outdoor production combination, the formula is:

For the indoor period, D = [(A × 182.5) ÷ (B × 2C)] × 1.2
For the outdoor period, D = [(A × 182.5) ÷ (B × C)] × 1.3

Storage:
And finally, for storage of dried marijuana at a production site, the following formulas apply:

E = D × B × 1.5

Where;
E = the maximum amount of dried marijuana,
D is the maximum number of allowed plants, and
B is equal to 30 grams.
In other words, you are allowed to store your 1.5 times your crop's yield.

Assuming a prescription of 5 grams daily (the maximum amount without filling out an extra section declaring that your doctors believe the benefits will outway the harm), the allowed numbers of plants are quite generous.