Smelly medical marijuana grow-op a major headache for Nova Scotia woman

There's good news and bad news for a Glace Bay, N.S., woman who says her neighbour's medical-marijuana home grow-op is making her life miserable.

The bad news is that authorities say they can't do anything about the stench of weed she says pervades the house she shares with her pot-growing neighbour.

The good news is she won't have to put up with it forever.

CBC News reports the woman, who wasn't identified, said the pervasive pot smell makes her nauseous and gives her headaches.

“Everyone believes that we are a problem, or druggies, or dopeheads because it’s all over our clothes,” the woman said.

[ Related: Cities rushing to restrict where marijuana grow-ops can be]

“It’s like a wall when you open our front door, so any child or parent that sells us a dollar ticket believes there’s something going on in here inside the home.”

The neighbour has a Health Canada licence to grow the drug and told CBC News he's following the rules. Bylaw inspector Richard Wadden said the grow-op is in just one room.

“The room was totally sealed off,” Wadden told CBC News. “There was very good ventilation. In fact, walking into the house we couldn’t even smell the marijuana.”

After complaining vainly to different government departments, the woman now said she will fight the matter in court.

She could, however, save herself some legal fees by just putting up with it a little longer.

Last December, the federal government announced changes to the system of licensing medical marijuana use, including phasing out home grow-ops in favour of commercial operations. The government will also get out of the pot-growing business itself.

[ Related: B.C. leads all provinces in licensed pot growers and users ]

According to Ottawa's proposed timeline to implement the changes, home grow-ops would begin to be phased out in October and by April 1, 2014, anyone requiring medical marijuana would have to buy it from a licensed producer.

The government said home grow-ops are hard to regulate, with the licences subject to abuse, and risky, causing a number of fires each year.

The Globe and Mail reported last August that Toronto police raided a downtown medical marijuana compassion club twice in less than six months after receiving complaints, including about the smell. The club's operators face trafficking charges.