Pubdate: Wed, 26 Feb 2014
Source: Daily Courier, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 The Okanagan Valley Group of Newspapers
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/5NyOACet
Website: http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/531
Author: Ron Seymour

KELOWNA LIKES MEDICINAL POT

Welcome to Kelowna - the highest place in Canada.

A convincing if not exactly flattering argument could be made for 
describing Kelowna as the most marijuana-loving city in the country.

The number of local residents with federal licences to smoke pot is 
more than twice than provincial per capita average. And it's 10 times 
higher than the national average.

Don Schultz, whose Kelowna-based business Greenline Academy counsels 
people on how to grow their own pot, suggests there are a number of 
reasons for the higher-than-average number of medicinal marijuana users here.

"A lot of it is simply that there's a more liberal attitude toward 
marijuana use in Western Canada than elsewhere in the country," 
Schultz said Tuesday. "As you go east, people tend to be much more 
conservative toward this form of medicine."

A few Okanagan doctors are particularly willing to issue 
prescriptions for medicinal part use, Schultz says.

"I know people from Eastern Canada who come to the Okanagan just to 
get their prescriptions."

A somewhat higher percentage of seniors in Kelowna than elsewhere in 
Canada could also be a factor, Schultz says, since medicinal 
marijuana may be used to alleviate the discomfort of age-related 
conditions like arthritis and chronic pain.

A total of 1,186 people, or one per cent of Kelowna's population of 
120,000 has a licence to smoke pot. Across B.C., the rate is just 
four-tenths of one per cent.

Nationally, just one-tenth of one per cent of the population has a 
federal licence permitting them to possess and use marijuana, 
according to Health Canada.

After April 1, the 1,022 Kelowna residents who have a federal licence 
to grow pot at home, either for their own use or to supply a few 
other people, will no longer be able to do so. They are supposed to 
destroy their plants and buy their supply from new commercial pot growers.

But only eight such commercial grow-op licences have been approved 
across Canada, and just two in B.C. That has raised concerns people 
with licences to possess and use marijuana won't be able to get 
sufficient supply after April 1.

But Schultz says the commercial pot-growing ventures will operate on 
a large scale, and ship the supply to licensed customers through the 
mail. There may end up being fewer than 20 commercial pot-growing 
facilities in the entire country, Schultz says, and he believes one 
is close to being approved for the Okanagan.

Benefits of the switch to commercial pot production, Schultz 
believes, include a product that's better made, in that it will be 
subject to quality controls, inspections and labelling information, 
collection of tax revenues, and less infiltration of the business by 
organized crime.

The fate of so-called compassion clubs, non-profit organizations 
which have opened storefront locations in many cities, including 
Kelowna, to provide pot to medicinal users of marijuana, is unclear.

The new federal laws say medicinal users of pot can get their supply 
only through the mail from licensed commercial growers. But the 
operators of a Kamloops Compassion Club, which was raided by police, 
launched a court challenge this month saying the new laws are unconstitutional.

Representatives of the Okanagan Compassion Club, located in Rutland, 
declined a request for an interview.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom