Life Changing Events and Exercising My Right to Grow Cannabis as a Canadian.

Wow, yesterday was a very historic "turning-point" kind of day for me and I'm sure many others share this exact same sentiment.

First let me say that, it was so much fun and incredibly exciting to see Steem and many other crypto-coins increase in value...substantially in the space of 24 hours. My sense of the matter, and what I'd like to think is that this market change, literally has the power to transform the lives of numerous folks, all over the world.

That's worth celebrating, in and of itself, don't you think?

 Here's to the continuation of this trend and more lives made a little easier with each day that passes!

The other exciting news that yesterday brought, was that I was successful at starting the process of exercising my right to grow cannabis for myself as a medical cannabis patient in Canada.

This constitutional right was won last March, when four medical cannabis patients took the federal government of Canada all the way to the Supreme court of Canada.

In a "David versus Goliath" case, this small group of chronically ill patients won both an injunction to stop the government from destroying personal medical cannabis gardens (which were previously permitted) and they won the right for any medical cannabis patients to grow their own as long as they obtain a grower's license from the government.

I was never one of the original, pre-2012 "grandfathered cannabis growers". As such, I've never had a legally recognized license to grow for myself.

When I decided to register and get my personal medical cannabis license (which was 2 years ago) no-one was being permitted to grow their own. The court case hadn't been tried yet and only the patients who possessed this "grandfathered licensing" could grow. The rest of us were informed that we could only buy cannabis from a government sanctioned grower which the government labelled as their recognized Licensed Producers.

Ultimately, the Canadian government tried to create a cannabis monopoly and force all medical cannabis patients to buy their plant medicine through one of their "approved corporate growers". (Many of which are large corporations now, with traded stocks, level 17 vaults and high security. It's a billion dollar industry.)

Yesterday, I met with a "new to me" cannabis doctor who reviewed my application to obtain a cannabis grow license.

This is my second cannabis doctor. My first doctor who I quite like, will not endorse independent growing licenses. This is actually very common among Canadian cannabis doctors because many are choosing to accept kick-backs, in back-room deals that are struck between the Licensed Producers and themselves. It is the cannabis-friendly doctors who assign patients to a Licensed Producer in the licensing process...not Health Canada, which is the government arm of the current system.

When patients exercise their right to grow, they take their power back, produce their own medicine and line way fewer pockets in the process.

No one receives residuals or royalties from monthly medicinal cannabis purchases because growers no longer need to buy their material.

To obtain my grower's license, I had to track down a doctor who would review my case, confirm my prescription and sign my application. I also had to pay the doctor $339 for this service. This amount is determined by the daily prescription of cannabis prescribed. If the prescription is more than 10 grams per day, the fee climbs to over $1200.

This hoop jumping all happened in a video-conference, yesterday. Now my application, with all the "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed, gets sent into Health Canada, for finally approval or rejection. I was advised to send my application file to them by registered mail so that it can be tracked and verification can be noted, once received. This just provides an extra level of security and the ability to trace the documents until they are received.

On average, the turn-around on the approval of grow licenses is taking approximately 4 months before an actual paper license is issued and awarded.

I'm now in the "waiting on Health Canada" portion of the process, but when approval is received I will legally be permitted to put seeds in soil and grow up to 40 cannabis plants, at a time.

To say that I am happy about this new turn of events is an understatement.

It feels like freedom is just around the corner for so many people and it's such a good time to plant seeds, literally and metaphorically speaking.

I welcome your comments and invite you to follow me on my journey.