This result comes on the heels of a Health Canada release earlier in the week that further outlined current thinking on production and processing regulations.

Using a hockey rink as a visual prop, Health Canada proposed that small scale cultivation licenses, known as ‘micros’, will be limited to 200 square metres, or approximately 2,150 square feet of canopy area. Micro-processors, who will eventually handle extraction and edible manufacturing, would be able to process up to 600 kg of cannabis annually.

These limits will allow the majority of small growers, particularly in BC, to participate under a micro-cultivation license, with somewhat lower barriers to entry than larger cultivators. They also offer the opportunity to make a decent living.

This is a departure from the current medical program, a Harper-era scheme that has led to a slow proliferation of relatively large companies.

The primary reason for this was not necessarily capital, but rather that a medical production license required a business to perform many functions, which made it difficult for many owner-operated cannabis businesses to exist.

At the outset of this system, now known as the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR), every company had to serve as grower, quality assurance expert, marketer, packager, processor, distributor, IT expert, and financier. There was no business network to plug into, so it was all or nothing.