Medical marijuana user lights up in the Commons to protest law

OTTAWA — A medical marijuana user lit up a joint in the House of Commons Monday to draw attention to what he calls unfair rules set by Health Canada.
Samuel Mellace, who lives in Abbotsford, B.C., is a licensed pot user under the federal government's medical marijuana program. He started smoking a joint Monday afternoon while in the public gallery of the House of Commons as the daily question period came to an end. Mellace took a few drags on the joint before a security guard asked him to put it out and leave the gallery, which he did without incident.
At a news conference on Parliament Hill a short time later, Mellace said he didn't think it was wrong for him to take his medication in the House of Commons.
His complaints about the government's medical marijuana program are twofold: delays in processing applications for licences and restrictions on how medical marijuana can be used.
Mellace wants licensed users to be able to use their legal marijuana in creams or food, something that is prohibited by Health Canada's regulations.
"Smoking marijuana is not the only way," Mellace said. "There's other methods, there's people that cannot smoke it."
His wife is one of those people, he said; she has lung cancer and can't inhale her marijuana medication. Mellace's company, New Age Medical Solutions, makes products that contain marijuana extracts, including a hand lotion and a butter that can be used in baking and cooking.
The smoothies Mellace makes for his wife with the marijuana extracts are technically illegal. Health Canada rules stipulate that licensed users can only possess dried marijuana for medical purposes and that it cannot be processed into another substance. Doing so contravenes the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations and means the byproducts are controlled substances under federal drug laws.
"Any activities that fall outside of the MMAR is an enforcement issue and falls under the jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies," Health Canada said in an emailed response to questions from Postmedia.
Health Canada does acknowledge there is a backlog in processing applications for licenses, which Mellace and other users at Monday's news conference said is punishing patients.
If their licence expires before it is renewed, they say they risk either being caught and charged with drug offences or living in pain while they wait for a new licence, sometimes for months.
"Health Canada is currently experiencing a temporary delay in processing applications, due to a sharp rise in the number of applications received in recent months," the department said. It aims to process applications within eight to 10 weeks and says it has implemented a strategy to improve waiting times that is already working.