How to Get Your ACMPR License to Grow Medical Marijuana in Canada
The medical grow license is still called the ACMPR license by most people, but really the ACMPR was repealed on October 17, 2018, to make way for the new Cannabis Regulations under the Cannabis Act. But the framework surrounding medical cannabis from the ACMPR remains intact under the Cannabis Act and is called the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Program.
Under the new Act, you can still register with Health Canada to produce a limited amount of cannabis for your own medical use or designate someone to produce it for them. And then depending upon your province or territory, if you are of legal age, you can also purchase directly from authorized retail outlets or websites.
History of Canada’s Cannabis Laws
It’s useful to know some of the histories behind Canada’s existing cannabis laws. Cannabis had been illegal in Canada since the 1920s. In 1999 this started to change when the first exemptions were offered for medical purposes.
In 2001, regulators enacted the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) giving people certain rights to produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes as well as cultivate for personal medical needs. To thwart illegal growth, the MMAR was replaced by the Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) in June 2013 and the new rules banned personal growth.
Then on August 5, 2016, the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) was implemented. ACMPR gave authorized persons permission to grow medical cannabis for personal use or designate a person to grow it for them.
Steps to Getting an ACMPR License
The first step to getting a personal grow license is meeting with your healthcare provider to obtain a prescription for the amount of dried cannabis you’ll need to treat your medical condition. The maximum daily use limit is 3.2 grams of dried cannabis or equivalent.
Fresh cannabis is about five times the weight of dried cannabis and then cannabis extracts are based on the weight of the cannabis used to get the extracts.
You’ll need the original paper copy prescription. And the prescription needs to include certain basic information about the patient and healthcare provider specified in the Cannabis Regulations. The prescription will list the number of grams per day you can use and how long you can go before needing renewal.
Next, you’ll need to fill out the eleven-page Health Canada application called ”Registration with Health Canada Production of Cannabis for Own Medical Purposes”. The application includes questions to make sure you qualify for a license according to the Cannabis Regulations.
You get the application from the Health Canada website where you download the form and fill it out. It takes a total of around 20 minutes to fill in all the blanks and you can use a blue or black pen. It asks who you are, where you’re going to grow and store it, and just some very basic personal information.
It goes without saying that when filling out the forms, be honest. The last thing you want is to be in hot water with the authorities because you bent the truth.
Make sure that you own your grow area or that you get the okay from your landlord. There will be some extra paperwork to fill out if you don’t own the place.
Then sign your name and courier it over to Health Canada with an original copy of your cannabis prescription. It takes a few days to get there via Canada Post.
ACMPR Consultants Can Help Get More Grams for You
The trickiest part of the process is getting a doctor to prescribe the number of grams you want. Most doctors are pretty conservative by nature and some still prefer not to write prescriptions for medical cannabis.
To help with this, you can go with an ACMPR consultant like Cannabis Growing Canada that sets an appointment with a high-prescribing doctor in their network. The other benefit of going with a consultant is they’ll fill out the Health Canada application accurately and send it in for you.
License Usually Arrives in a Month or So
After waiting for a month or so, you’ll get mailed your license to grow. It’s a good feeling being officially medically licensed by the government of Canada to grow up to 95 plants, with the number depending upon how many grams per day were in your application. Additionally, you can grow four plants recreationally. This is a key point because the two are separate.
If you’ve got a family member who has a prescription and you’re into gardening yourself, you can become their grower. You can grow for them legally and it’s just another couple of pages worth of the paperwork that you have to fill out. You just need a prescription, paperwork, courier it off and start growing.
