Feds Reportedly Mark Up Medical Marijuana By 1,500 Per Cent
Posted April 16, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new controversy is brewing around an already contentious health issue – the prescription of medical marijuana.
The price patients are paying for their pot is what’s causing the uproar – as new documents indicate the federal government is marking up prices fifteen-fold from what they’re paying their supplier.
The papers indicate that Health Canada charges authorized users of the drug $150 plus GST for a 30-gram bag of the drug. That works out to revenues of $5,000 per kilogram, a 1,500 per cent increase from what they pay their supplier, about $328.75 per kilogram.
“It’s impossible for a person on disability (to afford),” said Ron Lawrence, 38, a burn victim who needs the drug to ease his pain. “The sickest people are the ones that need it the most – they’re the ones who don’t work.”
Ottawa gets its marijuana from the company Prairie Plant Systems, which grows the plants in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, Manitoba.
A little more than 1,000 of the 1,742 patients authorized to use marijuana as medication are able to grow their own, but those forced to order through Health Canada have to pay the price. Currently nearly 150 of them haven’t been able to however, and owe just over $140,000 in back payments.
“At a time when medical cannabis users all too often have to choose between buying groceries and their medicine, it is unconscionable that Health Canada . . . should be marking up this product 1,500 per cent,” said Philippe Lucas of the group Canadians for Safe Access.
Health Canada spokesperson Jason Bouzanis said the price quoted doesn’t include other costs the department pays.
“The price for individuals authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes is based on the actual cost of production and an estimate of costs associated with the distribution of the product,” he said. “These costs are subject to change.”
The group Vancouver Island Compassion Society is taking the government to court over the current cost to patients – mounting a constitutional challenge to the program. The case is set to be heard in British Columbia Supreme Court in mid-May.
