Ottawa places three-gram daily limit on medical pot it covers for veterans
Posted November 22, 2016 2:51 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The federal government is limiting the amount of medical cannabis that veterans will be reimbursed for to three grams a day.
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says the cost of reimbursing veterans has increased with many using up to 10 grams a day.
The new limit announced Tuesday at a military and veterans health research forum in Vancouver is for dried cannabis or the equivalent of oil and fresh marijuana.
Hehr said Veterans Affairs and the Canadian Armed Forces are also launching a study on the medical effects of cannabis, adding that scientific research is inconclusive.
“The safety and well-being of our veterans was the fundamental consideration in the development of this reimbursement policy,” he said.
The number of veterans who were being reimbursed for medical cannabis rose to more than 3,000 in eight years and he was surprised the former Conservative government began paying for it with no policy in place, Hehr said.
Three grams a day is the upper limit of use in guidelines from the college of physicians, Hehr said.
Under the new policy, veterans who are already claiming for more than three grams per day of dried marijuana will continue to be reimbursed at that level until May 21.
Veterans whose health practitioner authorizes more than three grams a day of dried marijuana or its equivalent can apply for an exception to the policy, which also fixes the rate of reimbursement to a maximum of $8.50 per gram.
“The fixed rate will ensure that what veterans are charged, and the department reimburses, is a fair market value price,” the department says in a background document explaining the policy.
Veterans Affairs says the new daily limit is consistent with the amount of medical cannabis used by average Canadians, which Health Canada indicates is an authorized amount of 2.6 grams per day.
Israel and the Netherlands have also done research on marijuana for medical purposes. Israel’s average use of cannabis is 1.5 grams per day, while in the Netherlands it is 0.68 grams.
