Ahead of the 2019 federal budget, the ‘Don’t Tax Medicine’ campaign calls for medical cannabis to be treated like other prescription drugs.
When the Canadian government legalized recreational cannabis last October, medical patients began noticing something new on their medication orders: an excise tax stamp, indicating the licensed producer paid the mandatory tax meant to fund the costs of regulating recreational cannabis.
Some patients may not have noticed, as some licensed producers simply absorbed that tax to keep prices stable for patients. Other producers chose not to, and patient prices rose by around $1 per gram.
Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana (CFAMM) has been pushing its Don’t Tax Medicine campaign for a while now, but with the federal budget expected in March, the campaign is being pushed out harder than it has been before. The message is simple: treat medical cannabis like any other prescription drug in Canada, and remove all the taxes on it.
Lift & Co. spoke to Gerald Major, the incoming president of CFAMM, about the Don’t Tax Medicine campaign and the issue of excessive taxation on medical cannabis.
Kieran Delamont: Could you give me the elevator pitch — to a layperson, what is the Don’t Tax Medicine campaign all about?
Kieran Delamont -Lift&Co – February 15, 2019.