Ontario Liberals To Ban Pot Lounges And Vaporizers

Fascinatingly Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne promised during the campaign she had no intention of enacting legislation on e-cigs, but first piece of healthcare legislation is a ban on e-cigs.

Note Ontario Liberals are not to be confused with federal Liberals who are promising pot legalization, but premier Wynne actively campaigns with federal leader Justin Trudeau.

It’s odd at a time when marijuana legalization is on the federal agenda, there’s provincial legislation effectively banning Ontario’s thriving pot lounges and cannabis vaporizers.

The legislation doesn’t even mention the word marijuana, but the bill’s intentional vagueness contains worrisome language to ensure bring your own weed lounges and cannabis enthusiasts who want to buy a vaporizer are impacted by the legislation.

Legal medical marihuana patients will not be able to learn about the benefits of vaporizing, best vaporizer to buy for their budget or even purchase a vaporizer without some kind of stigma.

It’s going to be tremendously more difficult for a legal medical marijuana patient to purchase a vaporizer under the act without an exemption written directly into the Ontario government’s legislation.

How does e-cig vaporizer legislation work against marijuana?
The Ontario government has done a wonderful job at writing a definition for what a vaporizer is – every vape meets the definition under the act.

Whether a person is using their vaporizer for nicotine, medical marijuana, weed or other legal herbs, their vaporizer falls under purview of the legislation. Bring your own bud lounges, also referred to by city of Toronto as a Medical Marihuana Inhalation Facility would cease to exist because vaporizers can not be displayed. Places of entertainment, which a vapor lounge might be considered are outlawed. The legislation greatly impacts how marijuana vaporizers will be sold.

A customer will need to know exactly what they are purchasing when buying a vape because they can not ask an employee any questions. An employee can not suggest a vaporizer to buy, instruct a person on how to use a vaporizer properly, they will only be able hand a customer the vaporizer they asked for.

Vaporizers must be kept out of view of the public and stores will not be able to display them in any manner.
Thankfully there are strong arguments to be made for a medical marihuana exemption and there is time to act.

Consider this;

1. Volcano Vaporizer is a necessary medical device and is an approved medical device (Class 2) in Canada. The product safety is approved according DIN EN ISO 60 601 and the necessary quality management system is approved according DIN EN ISO 13485 and approved by Medical Device Conformity and Clinical Evaluation MDD 93/42/EEC. It would be banned.

2. Currently Toronto has numerous medical marihuana inhalation facilities with vaporizers on the table and it’s the only city with a study on the issue. The study explains these are necessary venues because medical marihuana patients use them.

3. Besides Toronto, vapor lounges operate in other Ontario cities too, Niagara Falls, Hamilton and Kingston without police complaint.

4. Raising awareness of the benefits of medical marihuana vaporizing is prohibited.

5. Medical marihuana patients ought to be able to use vaporizers in the workplace and legal opinion is; failing to accommodate would be a Ontario Human Rights Code violation. Disabled Ontarians have to have a place to medicate in the workplace and surely employers would prefer they use vaporizers and not spark up rolled medical marihuana in joint form.

6. A vaporizer is a preferred method of inhaling medical marihuana because THC evaporates at approximately 364F while your lighter is approximately 800F or more.

7. Vaporizers save legal medical marihuana patients money using less cannabis to achieve the same effect as smoking.

Matt Mernagh is the author of Marijuana Smoker’s Guidebook: The Easy Way to Identify and Enjoy Marijuana Strains. On sale now from Amazon, Urban Outfitters or iTunes.