Pubdate: Fri, 18 Jan 2013
Source: Northumberland Today (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Sun Media
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/TsYrjmMc
Website: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5003
Author: Valerie MacDonald
Page: Front Page

MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROWER OPPOSES COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION

WEST NORTHUMBERLAND - Mark Hayden suffers from spina bifida and can 
no longer work in any of the high-paying trades for which he went to school.

Diagnosed with the very painful and debilitating condition in 2000 
after a back operation, the 49-year-old former Toronto resident 
relies on a partial pension from the Workers Compensation Board to 
help pay the bills - and medical marijuana to manage his pain.

Without it, he couldn't function at all, the pain is so intense, he 
said during a recent interview in his West Northumberland home. (At 
his request, for security reasons, the exact location is not being 
published but he hopes to operate a bed and breakfast in the future 
and host a cancer self-help group one afternoon a week.)

The cost to buy his own marijuana supply from the federal government 
was $3,000 per month before he began growing his own plants from 
seeds in the basement of his house during the fall of 2011.

You would never know from the exterior, or even the main floor of his 
home, that in the basement, two rooms with ventilation and lighting 
systems are turning seeds planted in earth and watered by hand into 
single plants harvested daily. It's dried and cured, "sort of like 
tobacco," Hayden said. He produces concentrated marijuana buds of two 
different strains.

It took a decade to get a medical practitioner to fill out the 
necessary paperwork for Hayden to receive legal marijuana produced by 
the government - but only about a year to become a home grower 
himself, he said.

Currently under a pair of licences (his own and his wife's) through 
Health Canada, he can produce enough for himself and three other 
patients in his "medicinal garden," he said.

Hayden explained that he became a grower as a way of "getting off the 
dole" - substituting a marijuana-growing business for his former 
refrigeration and air-conditioning operation.

His sole client at this time is Adrienne Baker-Hicks, a resident in 
the eastern end of Northumberland. They made contact as a result of 
an article published in this newspaper about a year ago. The story 
was about how Baker-Hicks suffered from a series of medical 
conditions and diseases, and how marijuana controlled her pain better 
than other types of medication and enabled her to function again. In 
the article, she expressed concern about the government charging her 
HST on a substance it was licensing her to take in order to improve her health.

With Hayden, she doesn't pay HST she said, so it is a flat $750 per 
month for 150 grams of marijuana.

Either she travels to his home to pick it up or he delivers it, 
unlike the past practice of waiting for a delivery from Health Canada 
that sometimes was late.

Baker-Hicks said she has reduced the many medications she has been 
taking for seizures and strokes over the past year and now has her 
driver's licence back.

She said she needs more marijuana than the five grams per day she has 
been taking and is in the midst of doing the paperwork to double it.

Both Baker-Hicks and Hayden support the "home-grown" marijuana option 
and not the change announced last month which would turn the growing 
market over to large companies.

"Under our new rule, only facilities that meet strict security 
requirements will be able to produce marijuana for medical purposes," 
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is quoted as stating at a media 
conference in December.

"And because it will no longer be produced in homes, this may make it 
easier for local municipalities to pass zoning bylaws, for example, 
requiring any commercial production to take place outside of 
residential neighbourhoods."

Instead of making this change, the government should be supporting 
injured workers and others to set up a medicinal marijuana business 
that can help them and other medicinal marijuana users, Hayden said.

"Guys like me should be allowed to grow for the sick people," he said.

But if the federal government has its way, changes will in place by 
March 31, 2013, with the new system fully implemented by April 2014, 
states a published report.

Physicians would continue to fill out forms for people to use medical 
marijuana but they would no longer need Health Canada approval, 
according to the changes, essentially taking the government out of 
the medical marijuana business.

Anyone wanting to comment on the proposal must do so by Feb. 28. To 
comment or obtain more information go to the Health Canada website at 
www.hc-sc.gc.ca .
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom