{"id":265398,"date":"2017-08-17T10:30:54","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T14:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/canada-can-leader-medical-cannabis-trade\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T21:43:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T01:43:37","slug":"canada-can-leader-medical-cannabis-trade","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2017\/08\/canada-can-leader-medical-cannabis-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada can be a leader in medical cannabis trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are millions of people worldwide with chronic diseases and other medical conditions whose lives could be improved with better access to medical cannabis. Meanwhile, for the past decade and a half, Canada has built the most sophisticated medical cannabis framework in the world. These circumstances present an exceptional opportunity for trade leadership on the international stage.<\/p>\n

Last year, the amount spent on cannabis worldwide \u2014 including medical cannabis \u2014 was $150 billion<\/a>. By comparison, Canada\u2019s crude oil exports totalled $49.8 billion<\/a> in 2016. The federal government must proactively make medical cannabis exports part of its innovation agenda. With the right approach, the industry has the potential to be a significant contributor to Canada\u2019s biotechnology and life sciences sectors.<\/p>\n

We should leverage the success of Canada\u2019s domestic medical cannabis model to address the gap in access to quality products worldwide. Thanks to the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) and their predecessor regulations, Canada already has a growing network of experienced, responsible licensed producers committed to meeting and exceeding Health Canada\u2019s high safety and security standards from seed to sale. More than 167,000 Canadians<\/a> have come to rely on the quality of domestically produced products to ease the symptoms of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, cancer, and chronic pain \u2014 an increase of 123 percent<\/a> since April 2016.<\/p>\n

Tilray serves tens of thousands of patients domestically. We also receive orders from governments, researchers, hospitals and pharmaceutical distributors around the world seeking pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis products. In December 2016, Tilray became the first medical cannabis producer in North America to have a certificate of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliance published in the European Union\u2019s GMP database. GMP certification is the most rigorous standard that manufacturers of medical products must meet in their production processes and enables our company to expand our international distribution. In 2016, Tilray became the first company to legally export medical cannabis products from North America to Australia and the European Union. Earlier this year, we made our first export to Latin America.<\/p>\n

Under the current terms of the ACMPR \u2014 which are designed to prioritize domestic production and supply \u2014 the ability of licensed producers to meet global demand is still limited. Producers need fewer hurdles and more certainty so we can serve patients in need in nascent markets. Canada\u2019s medical cannabis framework must be updated to better facilitate the ability of licensed producers to supply products to these markets for medical treatment, research and clinical trials. The federal government should work expeditiously to encourage, not curtail, their efforts in this field.<\/p>\n

In February 2017, when the European Parliament voted to approve the Canada-European Union trade agreement (CETA), Canada gained access to the world\u2019s second-largest market: over 500 million consumers in 28 countries generating $20 trillion annually in economic activity<\/a>. Germany, with a population of 80 million, is a party to that agreement. In 2017, Germany legalized medical cannabis, with full coverage for any patient authorized by a physician. Yet the country is years away from a domestic supply chain and is looking to Canadian producers to fill that void. The same is true in Croatia, Ireland, Mexico and the many other countries that have medical cannabis coverage but lack a network of domestic producers and the safe, secure supply Canadians have come to depend on.<\/p>\n

When Sir Frederick Banting discovered insulin nearly a century ago, Canadians did not turn inward, unwilling to share a medical breakthrough with patients in other countries and continents. Rather, through partnership with successive governments, strategic investments and a commitment to the open exchange of knowledge, health practitioners, researchers and industry set an agenda for quality patient care that has led to better health outcomes for millions of people with diabetes around the world. The same could now be true of medical cannabis.<\/p>\n

To effectively seize this opportunity, the federal government should take the following three steps:<\/p>\n