The Canadian federal government's monopoly over medical marijuana production is now officially history. The Canadian Supreme Court Thursday refused to hear a government appeal of two earlier lower court decisions annulling Health Canada's Medicinal Marijuana Access Regulations.

Under the government regulations, only a monopoly contractor growing marijuana in Flin Flon, Alberta, could supply medicine for more than one patient. Registered patients could grow their own or have a caregiver grow for them, but that caregiver could grow for only one patient.

Canadian medical marijuana patients and providers have chafed under the regulations for years. They complained that the Flin Flon marijuana was substandard in quality and that the regulations effectively criminalized co-ops and collective dispensaries growing for a community of patients.

"This type of litigation, which was challenging the restrictive nature of the government program, started in 2002," said lawyer Alan Young. "It's taken seven years for this resolution, and finally Health Canada has their marching orders. Now it's a question of whether we can compel this department to actually do what the courts have said they should do, which is provide compassionate access to people," he told the Canadian Press.

A federal court judge in British Columbia declared the Medicinal Marijuana Access Regulations invalid in January 2008, echoing the earlier decision of the Ontario Court of Appeals. The government was trying to appeal both decisions.

Now, Canada's medical marijuana providing community should flourish, Young said. "Hopefully some very good cultivators will be supplying medicine to sick people, and Health Canada can then monitor it in a very effective way. That's what I've been telling them for eight years."