[420 Girl]

A Prospect man hopes the Canada Revenue Agency will grant him a tax refund on medical marijuana he bought from the black market, saying the drugs provided by Ottawa are second-rate.

Tom McMullen, 45, uses about five grams of marijuana each day to relieve chronic pain from three spinal fusion surgeries and from nerve damage done to his legs.

He also suffers from shingles.

"The Health Canada stuff tastes awful," he said.

"It’s unsmokeable. It’s not good stuff at all. So my only other option, really, is the black market."

McMullen has had a licence to use medical marijuana for five years, but because he buys his medication from illegal dealers he has no receipts to submit to the tax man.

If he bought marijuana from Health Canada, McMullen says, he would have no trouble getting reimbursed. And a tax refund would alleviate the staggering cost of his pain relief, which amounts to about $17,000 each year.

"I’m putting the light bills off, the credit card bills off, just for my medication," he said.

McMullen has since submitted a sworn affidavit to Ottawa detailing the dates of purchase and the cost of his medication.

"They are reviewing it, so that’s about all I can hope for right now," he said. "It is a bit of an extra hassle, because I do have papers and a licence that says I (can) legally do this."

McMullen has visited the pain clinic at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, but he said nothing has given him the relief he finds from marijuana.

The Canada Revenue Agency should honour McMullen’s affidavit, the chairwoman of Maritimers Unite for Medical Marijuana said.

The federal government needs to create legislation that makes it simpler for those who use the medication to get a tax rebate, said Debbie Stultz-Giffin.

"There are some of us who have successfully been able to get tax rebates by providing affidavits," she said.

"So if (McMullen) runs into any difficulties with Revenue Canada, I suspect that his case would basically be a slam dunk."



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