Growing at home: Health and safety concerns for personal cannabis cultivation

Personal cultivation as described by the proposed Cannabis Act (2017) will permit adults to cultivate up to four cannabis plants per household. This provision is intended to both promote equity by facilitating access to legal cannabis, particularly when retail outlets are difficult to access, and to undercut the black market. However, indoor cultivation and processing of cannabis may also introduce or exacerbate certain environmental health risks in the home. This document identifies health and safety concerns that may be relevant to personal cultivation after legalization – that is, legal home growing and the associated health risks.

Although this information may be of relevance to the public at large, the evidence presented here has been synthesized and organized for policy- and decision-makers, environmental and medical health officers, and other public health professionals. This review thus serves as a launching point for considering both wide-scale and regionally oriented preventive actions to mitigate the environmental health risks that may arise from growing at home.