Canada’s Capital Is Reimbursing Veterans For Medical Marijuana Purchases

In 2008, the government of Canada decided that veterans should have safe and affordable access to medical marijuana.

Although medical marijuana has been legal in the country since 2000, it wasn’t until eight years later that the government implemented a regulation to reimburse veterans for their medical cannabis purchases.

Now, it looks like Ottawa is about to drop $200 million on cannabis for veterans. The country’s capital made a slight change to this regulation in 2016 when it decided to reduce the amount of weed it would cover and the cost of how much it would cover.

Even though there have been slight reductions, the new number is more than double what the government spent on veteran reimbursements in 2019. Additionally, that number rose from $150 million in 2021 to $200 million in 2022.

The rising number of reimbursements aligns with the increasing number of veterans seeking additional treatments for their conditions like PTSD.

However, the increasing number has also seen some backlash surrounding whether veterans are using cannabis to temporarily bandage their mental illness and traumas.

For that reason, the public is hoping that the Canadian government will expand support for therapy and counseling. There have also been concerns that medical marijuana lacks enough research to be administered at such a widespread scale.

Worries aside, the Canadian government is constantly receiving requests for reimbursing thousands more veterans each year. That number is on a steady incline.

We can only expect the value of reimbursements to skyrocket from $200 million this year as the government continues receiving requests to cover the cost of medical cannabis for veterans.