Tracy Curley is a Toronto-based cannabis activist. She is a medical marijuana patient who devotes her energy to helping others access the medicinal benefits of cannabis. But although Health Canada has approved the use of medical marijuana for a variety of ailments including multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, cancer and mood disorders, Tracy’s work falls within a grey area of the law.

 

The current medical marijuana framework allows patients with extensive and often expensive paperwork from a doctor to access dried cannabis buds from a small selection of mail-order distributors. However, this system excludes patient access to other methods of using marijuana, placing products such as marijuana tinctures, creams and ‘medibles’ – that is foods infused with cannabis – in the same category as the production of hard drugs such as methamphetamine.

 

These restrictions put medicinal patients in an awkward position. From a harm reduction stance, it makes a lot more sense to eat cannabis instead of smoking it, especially for someone struggling with health problems. As well, eating ‘medibles’ helps the body to process cannabis more effectively, because in that form, it mimics some of the body’s natural inflammation and cancer fighting systems more easily.

 

Those are just a few reasons why patients continue to choose these illicit medicines. But the laws are slowly catching up. In August, a BC Supreme Court judge ruled that it was unconstitutional to forbid medicinal patients from using products infused with cannabis. The case is currently up for appeal on the Federal level.

 

For more on baking with cannabis, let’s talk to Tracy: