New Ontario regulations allow medical cannabis patients to smoke, vaporize, or otherwise consume their medicine in openly public places, The Star reports.
Even typically sensitive locations — such as movie theaters, restaurants, schools, stadiums, or playgrounds packed with children — will not be exempted from this rule.
However, this change does not necessarily mean that Ontario’s restaurants will soon be flooded with legal marijuana smoke: Dipika Damerla, the Associate Health Minister of Ontario, told reporters that “As an employer or a restaurant owner you can say ‘there’s no vaping, no smoking of medical marijuana here.” In that case, continuing to smoke would be a violation of the law.
“This is about the fact that somebody who’s very ill, maybe in a lot of pain, wants to use,” she said. “There are many ways to take marijuana. This is one way.”
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has stated that he is not looking to make a big deal over the regulations: “If it’s for medical purposes, it’s for medical purposes. There’s not going to be an overwhelming amount of people in Ontario running out to parks to have their medical marijuana.”
Medical Cannabis advocacy group Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana called the new policy an “important milestone in the recognition of the legitimacy of the use of cannabis as a medicine.”
Photo Credit: Vaping360.com
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