Canadian medical pot monopoly overturned

TORONTO, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A Canadian federal appeals court has overturned the government's monopoly of saying where medical marijuana users can buy their legal supply.

A three-judge panel in Toronto took just half a day to strike down the government's policy of one marijuana grower per legal user, Sun Media reported.

The judges said they weren't persuaded by government arguments that growers supplying more than one patient would lead to an unregulated industry, the Canwest News Service reported.

Authorized users who can't grow their own marijuana previously had to designate a grower, or obtain government-issued marijuana supplied by Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba, who grows the plants in an abandoned mine.

There are about 2,000 people in Canada who are allowed to smoke, brew and eat marijuana to alleviate pain from various diseases. Government statistics show 20 percent buy it from the Manitoba supplier, the report said.

Alison Myrden, a former corrections officer who legally smokes, said the Manitoba marijuana is substandard.

"It's absolutely disgusting, it's sticks and seeds and stems, I can't believe they'd make us smoke that as medicine," she told the Sun.