Pubdate: Thu, 22 Nov 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: James Nash - with files from Postmedia News and The Canadian Press

MEDICAL POT NEXT GOLD RUSH

California Entrepreneurs See It As a Growth Industry

Tony Aquino, 58, is a self-described "one-per-center" who has bought 
and sold more than 30 Southern California properties from the coast 
to the desert. Walter Jimenez, 29, is a short-order cook and 
air-conditioning installer. They're joined by a common interest: 
California's latest gold rush, medical marijuana.

The investor and the cook shrug off U.S. federal crackdowns in an 
industry valued at $1.3 billion by the California Board of 
Equalization, the state's tax collector. They joined more than 30 
people who paid Los Angeles-based Med Men University $100 to $250 for 
one-day courses on how to cash in as "bud tenders" and dispensary 
operators. Since California first legalized marijuana for medical 
treatment of diseases such as cancer under a "compassionate use" law 
in 1996, the practice has spread to 17 other U.S. states. This month, 
Massachusetts became the latest, while Colorado and Washington state 
went further, approving recreational use. There's nothing but growth 
ahead, said Adam Bierman, Med Men's co-founder.

"The momentum in the country is shifting and it's not going back," 
Bierman told pupils in a Santa Monica hotel conference room.

In Canada, the federal Health Department only issues growing licences 
to people over 18 who have had no drug-related criminal history over 
the past 10 years. More than 20,000 Canadians have authorization to 
possess dried marijuana for medical use, and 13,489 have a licence to 
grow marijuana for their own medical use. An additional 2,733 are 
licensed as designated growers, who may produce enough cannabis for 
up to two authorized patients.

Under Canadian law, marijuana can legally be prescribed for a variety 
of ailments from cancer to epilepsy and thousands of Canadians use 
pot to soothe the pains of arthritis, cancer, multiple sclerosis and 
other ailments.

However, last June, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said the medical 
marijuana program is in need of reform, after media reports that 
growers weren't well inspected. In B.C., a study released this week 
put the value of that province's pot industry at between $443 million 
and $564 million a year. The authors, from the University of B.C. and 
Simon Fraser University, argue that means the province could be 
bringing in massive tax revenues from legalization.

The researchers also pointed to data from Washington state, which 
recently held a successful referendum to legalize pot. The data 
suggests the same number of pot smokers in that state could bring in 
$2.5 billion in taxes over five years in a regulated system.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom