When Cannabis Farmers Grow Psilocybin – Cannabis (Weed)

What Happens When Cannabis Farmers Start Growing Psilocybin? That’s not the structure of a joke. This is a serious question.

British Columbia’s craft cannabis growers, patient advocates and psilocybin lovers met in Duncan, BC this past June to discuss the answer to that question.

TheraPsil, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting psilocybin therapy, co-hosted the event with the BC Craft Farmers Co-op.

When Cannabis Farmers Grow Psilocybin

Illegal or not, BC’s craft cannabis growers are ready to grow psilocybin.

Albert Eppinga, an indigenous cannabis farmer, is also the co-founder of Shaman Psychedelics. This indigenously owned company received an exemption from Health Canada, allowing it to cultivate and sell psilocybin mushrooms.

Jim Doswell is another BC resident who has been granted exemption from psychedelics. He said the process to obtain his exemption was lengthy, taking a total of six months. And the process is not easy. Some applications are not approved.

At the event, TheraPsil presented an overview of draft regulations they would like to see adopted by the federal government.

Their proposed regulations would remove psilocybin from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It would effectively put psilocybin medicine in the hands of more Canadians.

It would allow all cannabis growers to grow psilocybin mushrooms. This initiative is exactly what the federal government should be doing. But will they?

Legal Status and Exceptions to Psilocybin

Psilocybin is illegal in Canada. But that’s what cannabis used to be. And that has never stopped BC’s craft cannabis growers from growing cannabis or psilocybin.

In 2021, the Federal Secretary of Health granted statutory psilocybin exemptions to certain individuals.

With a change in federal food and drug regulations earlier this year, physicians can now request access to restricted drugs on behalf of their patients. This has always been the case with Health Canada’s Special Access Program, but now psychedelics are included while previously considered medically safe.

The federal government also decriminalized certain drugs in BC last spring. But psilocybin mushrooms were not on the list. Interestingly, crack, heroin, fentanyl, and meth made that list.

One has to ask how:

a) In British Columbia, it’s essentially legal to inject heroin into your veins, overdose on the healthcare system with fentanyl, and sip coke on the side. But expanding your consciousness with a mushroom that grows naturally on the coast is still illegal.

And,

b) That the Federal Secretary of Health can tell some Canadians they are free to possess psilocybin, but for other Canadians the same action will land them in jail.

When some cannabis growers can grow psilocybin but others can’t

When Cannabis Farmers Grow Psilocybin

This legal exemption for some, but not all, undermines the principle of equality before the law.

Suppose someone has a history of violence with psilocybin (a ridiculous assumption, but bear with me). In this case, our rule of law allows that person to potentially be disqualified from possession.

Just like we routinely get drunk drivers to blow into a device before their car starts (or strip them of their licenses altogether).

But to say that it’s okay for some but not for others, without some justification that goes beyond “public health” or corrects a historical injustice, is nonsensical.

The federal health minister’s exemptions are another example of this current Liberal government’s lack of understanding or respect for the nation’s Western legal traditions.

Whether it’s “good” or bad discrimination, everyone should have the right to consume psilocybin mushrooms.

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