Canada on track to spend $200M per year on medical cannabis for veterans
Global News
Veterans Affairs Canada said the government is on track to spend nearly $200 million this year as more and more former service members ask the government to pay for their cannabis.
Ottawa is reimbursing a record number of veterans for medical marijuana, with new figures showing the federal government shelled out more than $150 million in the last fiscal year — more than double the amount just three years ago.
And that is only the beginning as the figures from Veterans Affairs Canada reveal the government is on track to spend nearly $200 million this year as more and more former service members ask the government to pay for their cannabis.
While experts and advocates are uncertain about the reasons for the surge, they agree about the need for more information on the real benefits and potential harms of medical marijuana for veterans — and taxpayers paying for it.
“We desperately need better evidence to understand if these policies and if the current usage is likely to have more benefit or do more harm,” said Jason Busse, associate director of the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research at McMaster University.
“We don’t know that right now.”
Veterans Affairs started reimbursing a small number of former military personnel for their medical cannabis in 2008, at which point the approvals were granted on an extremely limited basis and with the approval of a medical specialist.
The move followed a series of court decisions more than 20 years ago that first allowed a legal exemption for the consumption of medical marijuana from criminal prosecution.
Then in 2014, Health Canada relaxed its rules around who could authorize the use of medical marijuana to Canadians and for what conditions and circumstances. The new rules didn’t put a limit on the amount of pot that could be authorized, or the cost.
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