“If I have someone beside me who wants to put up a pig farm, they have to go through the regular planning process,” Merritt said “But not with medical marijuana. There are a lot of people chomping at the bit to get it on this. You could live beside it and not even know you are in danger. Where do the rights of people living around this come in?”

Treble said he was unsure how any planning process would meet the confidentially requirements laid out by Health Canada. Township staff will continue to be in contact with the federal government prior to February, when a public meeting will be held on the matter. The planning meeting would officially begin the process of changing the zoning to allow for licensed medical marijuana grow operations.

Merritt wasn’t the only committee member around the table to be in up in arms over the possibility of medical marijuana production coming to West Lincoln.

“My back is already up on this entire thing,” said Alexander Micallef. “I agree with Councillor Merritt, we need to be well aware of what is coming down the pipe.

“I fear what will be blowing in the wind in this municipality,” he concluded with a chuckle.

While committee chair Joanne Chechalk wasn’t happy to see another case of one government trumping another, she was happy to see that municipalities at least have a little control — unlike with the industrial wind turbine issue, heard earlier in the meeting.

“Unlike an issue we dealt with earlier on the agenda, there seems to be some municipal opportunity to narrow the area we would like to have it in,” she said.

When the government first legalized the production of medical marijuana, there were 500 licensed users. Today, there are more than 37,000. Health Canada projects the number of approved medical marijuana patients to climb to 58,000 by next year. By 2024, the government projects there will be up to 450,000 approved patients.

The new industry, which will sell medical marijuana for $7.60 — up from the current $5 a gram — is projected to earn $1.3 billion a year.

A public meeting on the zoning changes will be held in February.