Authorization to sell dried and fresh cannabis products to licence holders 

Program update: Changes to authorizations to sell dried and fresh cannabis products

April 1, 2022

As part of its efforts to continuously improve the cannabis program, Health Canada is announcing the following program change.

As of April 19, 2022, Health Canada will begin granting the authorization to sell dried and fresh cannabis products to all micro and standard processing licence holders during the initial licensing process, without the need to submit a sales amendment application (request a change to authorized activities).

This program change means that:

• existing licences that do not authorize the sale of dried and fresh cannabis products will be reissued with amended conditions within the next 90 days (those already in the queue for a sales amendment will be prioritized)
• licence holders will be authorized to sell dried or fresh cannabis products to authorized provincial and territorial retail distributors once their licence has been amended and 60 days after their Notification of New Cannabis Product (NNCP) has been submitted for any dried or fresh cannabis products

This decision is based on the lower risk associated with producing dried and fresh cannabis products. No changes are being made to the regulatory requirements. All licence holders must continue to ensure that all cannabis produced and sold meets the requirements of the Cannabis Regulations, including:

• good production practices including pesticide testing requirements
• packaging and labelling requirements
• having a quality assurance person to assure the quality of cannabis prior to sale

This change will reduce regulatory burden on licence holders and give new licence holders the ability to bring products to market more quickly. Health Canada will continue to provide oversight using a risk-based approach.

No action is required on the part of licence holders or licence applicants at this time:

• processing licence holders who have already submitted a sales amendment application for dried and fresh cannabis products will be contacted on a case-by-case basis by Health Canada to clarify next steps
• processing licence holders who have not submitted a sales amendment application for dried and fresh cannabis products may see a change request (CHG) in the CTLS that they did not submit as Health Canada amends their licence
• licence applicants and licence holders who have submitted a licence application for a processing licence (micro or standard) will be granted the authorization to sell dried and fresh cannabis products to provincial and territorial retail distributors at initial licensing

Important: This program change doesn't apply to extracts, topical and edible cannabis products. Processing licence holders will still have to submit a sales amendment application to request the authority to sell these classes of cannabis products.

Should you have any questions about this change, please contact the Cannabis Licensing Inbox at licensing-cannabis-licences@hc-sc.gc.ca.