Three Stupid Things about Two (Or One) Plant(s)?

By Daniel Hagar

Recently my good buddy Mark received his Health Canada permit to legally possess and grow medical marijuana. On the card it says to the effect that Mark is allowed to grow either 2 (two) plants indoors or 1 (one) plant outdoors.

I just don’t understand this regulation, and worse, it reveals a Health Canada ignorant of the basics of medical marijuana production:

ONE: If growing indoors, does Mark have to vegetate his two plants from seed every cycle, i.e. can he plant only two seeds at a time to produce his two plants, or will growing any back-up non-THC bearing shoots or clones get him in trouble? But what happens if the two “legal” seeds produce males, or fail to thrive? There’s no allowing in the regulations for vegetating a few cannabis plants to replace one’s “official” flowering bud producers.

Any grower of ANY plant knows that not all of your seeds are going to sprout consistently. And, on the same note, after Mark has harvested his two plants, does he have to go through the WHOLE process again from only TWO SEEDS to get two bud-producing plants?

Health Canada should allow people to vegetate as many marijuana plants as they want, since a cannabis plant in vegetative state essentially has no THC, and worry more about the plants that are actually producing smoke-able marijuana.

TWO: How big in size can his two indoor, or one outdoor, plant(s) be allowed to grow? As many growers know, you can produce medical-grade cannabis from a plant half-a-foot to over twelve feet tall! It’s not the number of plants one has, it is how large the plants are allowed to grow, the amount of space in which one has to grow their crop that matters. The Authorization to Possess card should really state the maximum amount of square feet, indoors and out, that a card holder is allowed to use as their grow space.

Mark and I were joking that we should get a warehouse and grow his two permitted cannabis plants, but get them to grow all over the inside of the warehouse like kudzu vines. Heh. “Two plants, motherfuckers!”

Annnd…THREE: Okay, ONE plant outdoors. That’s just NUTS. Does ANYONE grow ONE plant of ANY kind when they wish to produce anything of value? Maybe Health Canada hasn’t gone outdoors in awhile, their basement-dwelling mole-like albino civil servants squeaking under the stuttering fluorescent glow of their subterranean cubicles, deciding on the number of plants us Surface Dwellers above may be allowed to grow; hell, I don’t know.

What I do know is that growing any plant outdoors usually introduces more risk to the plant than growing it indoors, ESPECIALLY cannabis! An “Authorized to Possess” card holder wishing to grow outdoors should sure as hell be given the legal right to grow more than ONE plant! What happens if Mark’s one outdoor medbud plant gets destroyed by weather, wandering herbivores, or delighted teen-agers? Does he have to start from ONE seed all over again, for his ONE outdoor plant? OH, and remember…you can only have ONE sprouting at a time, no back-ups!

I don’t mean to be so rough on Health Canada. In many ways they’ve seen the truth that medical marijuana is a natural pain-reliever and quality of life improver for so many people. But it’s odd that they continue to make very basic mistakes like the number of plants a person is allowed to grow for themselves. Oh, and hey…are two card holders allowed to grow together? That’s another area Health Canada needs to address.

Well, I have to go. I have to stand guard by Mark’s single outdoor sprouting plant…