The Canadian press is reporting today that a Superior Court judge in Ontario has declared the MMJ program there to be unconstitutional, and has allowed Ottawa a period of three months to solve the problem.
In his ruling, Justice Donald Taliana found that chronically ill people are unable to obtain their medical marijuana through “appropriate means,” forcing them to resort to illegal sources of the drug. This, in turn, he says, incorrectly labels such patients as criminals.
The Justice, who hails from St. Catherines, declared that the province’s entire MMJ program to be invalid, as are the laws prohibiting possession of marijuana and growing cannabis. However, he has given the government until July to fix the program or face the prospect of making cannabis production and possession legal across the board.
It’s expected that the government will appeal the ruling, pushing the three-month stipulation farther into the summer, or beyond, which could leave the current system in place indefinitely.
