Cannabis legalization costing medicinal users big time

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“Just the fact that there are so many taxes as it is, but not just to have new taxes and levies introduced on this medicine – it’s not for impairment — now there are new taxes and taxes on those taxes,” he explains.

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Prior to cannabis legalization, Hermary was paying for the price of his product plus GST, which amounted to $567/monthly to fill his prescription.

Now, because the federal government decided to allow taxation of cannabis across the board, he’s being charged the price the product, a $1/gram federal excise fee, plus a 16.8 per cent provincial excise tax, all before the GST gets calculated.

It adds up to a monthly bill of $703 — a 24 per cent jump — if he wants to keep receiving the same amount, but he says he’ll have to cut back because he just can’t afford the increase.

“I was taking pain-killers, anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants to deal with the nerve and muscular problems and scar tissue,” Hermary says. “Everything is better now; sleeping and quality of life, there are much less side effects, unless you count the munchies. It’s close to 100 per cent relief whereas it took multiple medications before that were destroying my liver.”

Hermary receives an ultrasound annually to ensure a dead spot on his liver caused by the opiates and pharmaceuticals hasn’t become cancerous.

“I honestly don’t think it’s going to change,” he admits. “With the current structure that has all these taxes, they’re going to make nothing but money. I can totally understand recreational product — tax the hell out of it, but don’t tax medicine. It’s an exuberant amount.”

Hermary’s life has been complicated further because his employer doesn’t approve of medical cannabis, meaning he can only consume it when he’s off-duty, and he has to continue taking some opiates when he is at work. This is despite the fact that he uses an oil low in the psychoactive ingredient THC, and higher in CBD, the medicinal factor.

Additionally, his medical cannabis provider Broken Coast only informed him of the cost increase days before legalization leaving him next to no time to prepare for the change.

In another quirk of the system, Broken Coast informed Hermary and other clients that the cannabis excise law does not permit them to show the excise tax as a separate line item at the online checkout, thereby causing customers to think the cost of the actual product has increased.

Hermary spoke with Red Deer – Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins, who he says assured him he’d be bringing all of these issues up in the House of Commons.

There is a petition, now closed, before the Government of Canada, to make medical cannabis tax exempt, like all other prescription medicines, it notes. Sponsored by Vancouver-area MP Don Davies, the petition received 12,228 signatures before it closed on Oct. 17, including nearly 2,600 from Albertans.

Other lobby groups are also pushing the federal government to make a change.