Pubdate: Wed, 06 Jun 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Elaine O'Connor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?135 (Drug Education)

GET YOUR DOPE-GROWING DEGREE

New School Offers Tips on Legalities, Techniques to Grow Cannabis at Home

Greenline Academy wants to be Canada's top institute of higher 
learning, a place students can earn what amounts to a master's degree 
in medical marijuana.

The school is designed t o help students navigate the legal 
medical-marijuana industry. It offers seminars, courses and 
consulting services to budding pot entrepreneurs, covering everything 
from growing techniques to legal requirements.

"Greenline is about networking and education and compliance. We are 
trying to educate people about the laws," said Kelowna-based founder 
Don Schultz. "The goal is just to get the education out there to help 
patients."

His $330 seminar on June 9 and 10 at the University of B.C. is sold 
out. Among the topics: cannabis therapeutics, legal aspects of 
medical marijuana and tips from a master grower on flowering and 
harvesting the plant. But don't expect to light one up during class.

"They are there to learn. It's not a pot party, it's to do with 
education," Schultz explained. "It's not like the 420 party in Vancouver."

Greenline has held previous sessions in Vancouver, as well as 
Victoria, Kelowna, Winnipeg and Edmonton. More than 1,300 people have 
attended the sessions, the founder said. Another seminar is set for 
Calgary in July.

The mission of the academy is to "provide students and business 
professionals with the knowledge to build, protect and bring a 
patient, caregiver and grower into this new industry with full 
compliance of the laws and Health Canada's regulations," according to 
its website.

Schultz, a former pilot, property developer and realtor, got into the 
medical-marijuana industry in 2010, following his interest in 
naturopath-ics. He went to work for a legal grower in Colorado, then 
attended the state's Greenway University where he earned an "MBA" as 
a medical marijuana business administrator, and became a 
state-certified cultivator of medical marijuana.

He brought the idea back to Canada and founded Greenline in April 
2011. He plans to establish a bricks and mortar school in Kelowna this fall.

The hardest thing about his business is trying to convince people he 
deals strictly in legal education.

"I just deal in paper, I don't deal in narcotics," Schultz said.

The website, www.Greenlineacademy.com , also offers patients 
referrals to medical marijuana dispensing doctors and growers, and 
offers growers connections to patients.

It also offers educational services to medical practitioners, 
lawyers, accountants, contractors and inspectors on aspects of the 
legal medical-marijuana industry, and help with navigating the law, 
paperwork and application and approval process.

The rapid growth of medical-marijuana producers in B.C. has led to 
complaints from municipalities.

Health Canada has reportedly issued more than 12,000 licences across 
the country, and B.C. has a heavy concentration of them. The licences 
usually only allow limited production for a specific person, but some 
municipalities have complained that abuse is rife and over-production 
is widespread.

Up to date Health Canada statistics couldn't be obtained, but figures 
from 2007 showed that B.C.'s Sun-shine Coast had the highest 
concentration of medical-marijuana-growing licences in Canada.

Those figures also showed that B.C. had the highest per-capita 
growing rate in the country - about 33 out of every 100,000 people in 
B.C., compared with five per 100,000 in Manitoba, had a licence to grow pot.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom