Canadian Cannabis Act / ACMPR license Q and A

Smoker's Lounge
,
1

Hey there fellow Canadians!

Are you sick of being stuck with a four plant limit?
Think its ridiculous that you could brew an ocean of beer at home but you can’t legally keep a few mother plants while you flower your four?

Then get your ass licensed!

I’d like this thread to become a place for general Q and A about the Cannabis Act / ACMPR and the process of getting licensed. It’s easier than most people think and so worthwhile if you rely on this for medicine or even truly enjoy the craft.

So I’m hoping some of my fellow Canadian OG’s can chime in with their experiences of getting legal, and hopefully we can encourage more of our people to get licensed and take things to the next level. I truly believe that it’s going to be up to the medical and enthusiast growers to safeguard the culture from the corporate vampires over the coming years, and I think that the more people we can get legit the more clout our community is going to have to protect and expand our legal rights to grow, breed, and share.

So please fellow Canucks, post liberally and we can get a nice batch of exciting info together and Overgrow bland corporate “legalization” culture! For so long as any Canadian remains desperately weedless enough to pay tax on corporate herb then none of us are truly high!

Let me kick things off with my story.

Cannabis saved my life, and the lives of people I love. In my home it is a medicine that makes the difference between a life worth living and constant unconquerable chronic pain. It’s not an optional thrill, it’s the Tree of Life.

Over the years I’ve put my ass on the line for this plant, for our right to enjoy it freely. While I don’t feel that “legalization” in it’s current form is anything less than a mess, I do believe it’s an important step forward nonetheless. That being said, as long as its treated in a more restrictive manner than alcohol we just aren’t done with the struggle yet.

I put off getting licensed for so long and now that I’ve filed my papers I feel like an idiot for not doing this years ago. It was much easier to apply than I thought it would be, and now all I’ve gotta do is wait for my papers to come back.

I used a consulting service to get my license, though you wouldn’t need to if your doctor is willing to sign the necessary forms. Of course, many people do not have a regular family doctor, or they may not feel comfortable asking them to write a prescription for Cannabis. That’s where consulting services can be worthwhile.

I went through these guys…

I’d seen them mentioned here on Overgrow by a couple of users and I decided to check them out. Their rates looked good enough and they offered a money back guarantee. I have no dog in this fight, I’m sure there are plenty of others offering similar services, I only picked these guys because I saw good comments here on Overgrow. I think it was a post by @legalcanada that first tipped me off, although I’m sure I saw a few others mention them as well.

The process was very simple. You contact them and set up an appointment for a skype call with a Doctor or nurse practitioner. You pay for the consultation based on the size of prescription you are requesting. I spent $200 for a 20 gram per day prescription, which will allow me to have up to 98 plants indoors and 4410 grams of dried product on hand. :grin: I think the cheapest option was about $150, but I’d like to do some pheno hunts and breeding and it was around double the plant numbers for an extra $50 bucks!

They send you some preliminary forms to fill out for the doctor. You tell them how much chronic back pain or anxiety or insomnia you’ve got on the forms and send them back. A few days later you have about a 5 or 10 minute Skype meeting with the doctor or nurse, you say “I’m in serious pain here”, she says “Shame about that pain, if you feel that Cannabis is effective for your pain relief I’ll write you a prescription”. A few days after that your prescription arrives in the mail. License to grow sends you an email with the Health Canada application forms, and a video guide to filling them out.

The forms are easy, and yes, they say you are authorizing them to share information with the RCMP. I get that you aren’t going to like that part, but if you read it carefully, and then worry about it a bunch and do some paranoid research you will realize it’s actually a good thing. What they are asking is basically, Hey, can we tell the cops that you are legally allowed to grow weed at your house if they think your electric bill is too high or you stink? They aren’t going to proactively send your details to the fuzz, but if the heat thinks you are growing weed they can ask Health Canada if you are licensed to. So don’t freak out about that part.

You also have to agree to a police background check, and attest that you haven’t been charged with cannabis related crimes in the last 10 years. The check is not a visit from the cops at your home, it’s a records search to see if you have a criminal record which would disqualify you from getting licensed. Other than that the forms are pretty straightforward, and the video guide is simple.

After that you send your forms off to Health Canada and you wait… and depending on who you ask… wait some more… and some more. But then…??? More waiting apparently. :thinking::confused:

From what I’ve read it’ll take anywhere from 6 weeks to 8 months for your license to come in the mail. It seems as if the really long wait times were more common a couple years ago, and I saw a few posts on Reddit from earlier this year that were in the 6ish week range.

I’m just starting the waiting game, but hopefully this will be the last time I’m only flowering four.

-gR

29 Likes
2

Some great information there @Ginger_Rick!! People helping people, this to me is what Overgrow is all about!!

9 Likes
3

I’ve been ‘sitting on the fence’ in regards to an ACMPR license.
There were some rumors a few months back in regards to licensees that were allowed high plant counts being inspected by the cops (never first hand accounts). That gave me pause at the time but I’ll write those off as BS now.

The thing that bugs me is that the process feels like a racket the way it is set up with consultants and annual fees.

Cheers
G

10 Likes
4

I did my first year with a Skype dr the following renewal I started calling local doctors till I found one that acknowledges weed does work. Twenty dollars later for paperwork fees I had my script to forward to health Canada. ( 7 weeks wait time)

Time frames are all over the map with corona happening. Buddy applied back in April first part of June I’d said better touch base with them his tracking info said they received it .
There response was were a bit behind just carry on as usual your fine to continue to grow after your expiration date.

Middle of July nothing yet next phone call revealed they’d lost his application paper work , was told all employees were working from home and it must be there!

End of July health Canada requests new paperwork middle of aug received his license. So 5 plus months fiddle farting with the govt.

10 Likes
5

I hear you about the fence sitting buddy, I was up on that fence for years myself. And I agree that it does feel a bit like a racket, having to renew every year with a huge processing delay.

The inspection thing is interesting, I can see how someone might attract some attention with a 500 plant license for a sore back. The truth is that the medical grey market in Canada has relied for years on large Designated Producers pooling licenses from many individuals, and this isn’t exactly something that the cops wouldn’t be aware of.

That being said, I’m not in this to spark 10,000 watts of artificial suns, and I’m not going to be driving pound bags to my local grey market dispensary for a quick buck. Now, I am not a lawyer but my general understanding here is that getting inspected by the RCMP would seem to imply to me that you had already given them some pretext to pay you a visit. I also think that is probably a situation that is more likely to come up where people are pooling multiple designated producer licenses at a single large site.

At this point the landscape has changed, there aren’t several dozen dispensaries in the neighbourhood like a few years ago, many being stocked by warehouse grows of pooled DP tickets. There are legal 4 plant hobbyist grows on every block, and thousands of legit home medical grows. Cannabis is legal and commonplace enough that the mere smell of it is no longer a sufficient pretext to search people or get warrants for their homes.

This alone is a huge shift in the playing field. You could be blasting unfiltered stanky exhaust out your front window with no subtlety, and if the officers come knocking you could answer the door with a huge cannon burning. Aww gee officers, my four Hogstooth are really manky when they flower, but my carbon filter broke. I’d replace it but I kinda like the smell, and it’s always smoky in here anyways. Derp, guess I’m a dumb smelly hippie but that’s not illegal, have a nice day officers!

Just think about what would have happened to that idiot a few years ago. I would never recommend this kind of behaviour but it would no longer provide the legal basis for the fuzz to snuff yer doob out on your face as they stormtrooper into your home and ruin your life. That’s a big change in the dynamic.

Policing budgets are finite things, if frequently massive. They need to prioritize their enforcement dollars now more than ever with a belt tightening global plague bringing fun new complications to eat up resources. Gonna need a few man hours to chase ignorant virus vectoring mouthbreathers around with this winter, and nobody is getting bigger budgets next year.
So I don’t think us small scale medi/enthusiast growers are going to be worth the enforcement spend for our 50 or 100 plant licenses, not when the guys they need to deal with are the warehouse grows if they are actually playing hardball about taking the market.

In the long run though I don’t think enforcement alone is going to work to capture the market for government weed. Government weed has an image problem with a culture that same government has spent decades kicking in the teeth. Over the next 5 to 10 years we’re going to see things becoming less pearl clutching and more closely aligned to the sorts of norms around the alcohol industry or they will have zero chance of killing off the black market with legit competition. A legalization strategy that excludes small craft producers, that excludes the very heart of the culture that is ostensibly being legalized is never going to succeed fully. Until a young college graduate can take his business degree and start a local craft cannabis brand with the same ease as a local craft brewery they will never displace the underground.

Just imagine if gay marriage was legalized under the condition that all same sex marriages would be arranged marriages picked by the state. There wouldn’t be a single pair of husbands in all of Vancouver!

5 Likes
6

Took me about 6 months for my renewal to arrive

7 Likes
7

Yeah, I’ll see where I’m at with doctors next year when renewal comes around. In all honesty it was a combination of not wanting to get in to this with the doctor we have had for years and the fact that I would have had to jump through a zillion hoops just to deal with her right now because of Covid.

God I hope I’m not in for five months of nonsense… :man_facepalming:

4 Likes
8

My wife and i are grandfathered under MMAR, but are considering ACMPR in order to increase limits and add outdoor (although our neighbours are cool about our garden). City i live in has always been pretty good as long as you aren’t/weren’t a dick about it.

I’ve never heard from any of my grow buddies about a confirmed check-up from LEO; and some of them have fairly high plant counts or are designated growers. To me, it just makes everything easier by eliminating the worry of being popped for cultivation. Now if only i could get residential growers insurance outside of BC.

7 Likes
9

I bet I’m not the only one around here who would love to hear more about this in general. Care to elaborate a little on residential growers insurance for us please?

4 Likes
10

And yes, it is. The clinics fill a void for those of us without sympathetic doctors. But, sooner or later, the high plant count will get shut down or tightened. Right now, they seem to be ignoring the issue, but it is only a matter of time (and politics).

5 Likes
11

Here are a couple of links; i’m in Ontario and LMG never returned my call or email though.

https://www.alignedinsurance.com/who-offers-the-best-insurance-for-marijuana-grow-operations-in-canada/

https://www.lmg-insurance.com/mmip

Insurance companies are terrified of humidity and water damage related claims; my current policy could exclude coverage for a regular houseplant. I’m a very small personal-use licensed medical grower; likely just build a good sealed environment room and use it for orchids or asparagus when it’s not in cannabis production. Costs are steep though.

As an aside, more than a few homeownes policies now have water damage clauses that limit coverage to singe-event issues. That means let a bathtub overflow and you’re likely covered; ice dam on your roof, or messed up vapour barrier - not so much.

4 Likes
12

License to grow is definitely legit. It is for sure a ‘racket’, but at 200 bucks who the hell cares? Besides the money you’re obviously saving on weed, the hours saved by being able to sort through potential mothers, run quick SOG grows and filling veg rooms with autoflowers make it a total no brainer.

I’ve personally never heard of a medical grow being inspected EVER and I knew people rocking big med grows like 15 years ago, although I have heard people on her say that people they knew were inspected. I think the chances are pretty damn low. Also just stay in your limit and it shouldn’t be an issue anyways.

@Ginger_Rick you say you’re allowed to possess 4400 grams dried and that’s something I’ve never understood about the licenses. Under the new federal law anyone can possess unlimited weed at their home, so why would a licensed person have any restrictions? Just curious if anyone has figured that out.

My license took 4 months to arrive this year by the way…yay government efficiency lol

5 Likes
13

Hah! Yeah that whole thing… it seems like a holdover in the laws from before anyone could grow and hold to me. So the way it reads to me is that when I build my mountains of weed I shouldn’t put more than 4400 grams in the pile with the little cartoon sign that says “Medicine!”

Everything else had to go in my Scrooge McDuck vault labelled “Recreational!” Oh and just to be safe you do this…
tenor
Only with buds of course!

Officer: Hey! Are you holding more medicine than your license allows sir?

Me: Oh no officer of course not! That 10 pound stack over there is my medicine. This pile is just for fun!
:thinking::+1::wink::laughing::joy::rofl::grin:

11 Likes
14

Thanks for the links, I’m gonna look into that more.

3 Likes
15

An elegant solution lol

3 Likes
16

High @ Ginger_Rick.

I’ve been sitting on the fence for years about applying to grow but think I’m going for it soon. I’ll probably have to call HC for advice on this as it’s a bit of different situation.

I’ve been getting my papers from the doc for 5 years now and have 12g/day. Last fall my wife got the same doc to sign her up for 6g/day.

Reading thru the regulations I find that you can have up to 4 med grows in one location but they all have to be separate and none of the growers are allowed to help any of the others. Talk about stupid regulations and and duplication of resources.

But if one is a designated grower for the other whether a grower themselves or not, then the person they are growing for is allowed to help in every aspect of the growing and harvesting of those plants.

I’m thinking I may have to be my wife’s designated grower for us to be able to work together on this tho she hasn’t helped with my plants unless I’m away for a while for the 20 years I’ve been growing up here. That means I’d have to get a criminal record check, (clean as a whistle so no prob), so basically outing myself to the local cops unless it’s cool to lie and say I’m going for security guard training or some BS like that. I’m an old age pensioner now so that should work. lol

I’m hoping HC will say it’s OK for us to combine grows and I’m thinking we might get hers for outdoors only to grow a bunch of autos to stock up then I can just play around and breed plants indoors all winter. Save a lot of electricity that way. The doc will likely add 4 to hers to make it 10g/day if we ask nicely. He raised mine from 8 - 12 and I probably could have got more so might go for 15. Don’t want to be too greedy and have HC giving us the hairy eyeball over it tho many get way more g/day thru these illegal brokers.

It’s a family doc that signs for us and no fees involved. He’s pretty reluctant but as long as I don’t tell anyone who signs for us he’ll keep doing it. Only see him once a year for this.

I found a couple links to clinics that do this stuff for free up to 5g/day they say so folks might want to check them out. Mustn’t have saved on but I think I checked it out and it was a bit bogus but here’s the other one.

National Access Cannabis Medical

:peace:

4 Likes
17

I can grow 100 plants, which is insane. Imagine that would be 3125 grams of hash.3.1 Kilos of bubble hash! nuuuuuuuts. It takes a bit initially to set up the paperwork to get things going. I never had to go get a criminal record check to get a license. Just sign a form promising I had never been charged under the cannabis act. It’s all covered by the forms UNLESS you are growing for someone else, then you need a criminal record check. My medical reason is the diabetes mellitus and it’s associated side effects.

DSC03668
DSC036681536×1152 237 KB

6 Likes
18

That’s the thing. If we have to abide by the separate growers rule then I may have to become her designated grower and get that check which I’d rather avoid.

It’s that or just keep doing what I’ve been doing the last 20 years keep getting the medicals just to wave them around in court. :slight_smile:

:peace:

2 Likes
19

I never realized this level of nonsense was a thing regarding multiple license holders who are married. We’re planning on getting the wife hers as well, but the idea that we couldn’t help each other or have to keep separate grows is fucking clown shoes honestly. Also, I just can’t see that ever coming up for me and really, are they going to charge me for helping my wife? Why would they be inspecting me in the first place unless I’m getting criminally investigated?

It just doesn’t seem like it would ever come to a head that you ran one big tent instead of two smaller ones, or god forbid, touched each others plants you naughty kids you!

3 Likes
20

Oh I should add, none of what I’ve said should be read to imply that you aren’t absolutely correct on a technical level. I don’t doubt your research at all.

It is, as always, the government that I doubt. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

5 Likes