Pubdate: Mon, 31 Mar 2014
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Section: Page A3
Copyright: 2014 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: James Keller

NEW CROP OF POT PRODUCERS ENTERS MARKET

Hundreds Of Companies Have Applied To Become Suppliers Of Medical
Marijuana Under New Health Canada Regulations

VANCOUVER- From the outside, there's little to distinguish MediJean
Distribution Inc.'s headquarters from the unremarkable office
complexes and warehouses that surround it in a sprawling slice of
industrial suburbia near Vancouver.

Inside, however, the picture is unlike anything else around it. The
company is putting the finishing touches on a massive hydroponic
operation as it joins a lucrative new industry made possible by Health
Canada's overhaul of the country's medical pot system.

One of the facility's growing rooms is already home to dozens of
maturing green plants of various strains, and it will soon house many
more. The concrete vault is empty, but it will eventually be filled
with dried marijuana ready to be shipped across the country.

In contrast to the stereotypical grow-ops of movies and TV newsreels -
whether for medical use, the black market or the grey zone where those
two worlds merge - the facility has a sterile laboratory feel, which
is precisely the point.

"This is anything but a grow-op," says Anton Mattadeen, the company's
chief strategy officer, during a recent tour of the facility in
Richmond, B.C.

"It is a clean-run, biopharmaceutical facility designed to produce the
highest quality produce available."

Mattadeen makes the same pitch other operators do: MediJean, he says,
will be able to produce a wide variety of consistent, high-quality
marijuana that simply wasn't available in the makeshift home grow-ops
of the old system.

MediJean is one of hundreds of companies that have applied to supply
marijuana under new Health Canada regulations that aim to stop
patients from growing their own pot and instead restrict production to
licensed commercial operations.

A dozen commercial growers have been fully licensed so far, and dozens
more, like MediJean, are in the late stages of approval. MediJean
expects to produce 90,000 kilograms of medical marijuana in its first
year.

A recent Federal Court ruling will allow patients to continue to grow
under the old rules for now, but the commercial regime will still
proceed as planned.

Under the new system, patients send a form signed by their doctor to
the commercial producers of their choice. The marijuana will then be
shipped directly to them using a secure courier, such as Canada Post
or a private company. As of early February, Health Canada had received
more than 450 applications from prospective producers, with about 25
new applications arriving every week. While Health Canada sold medical
marijuana for $5 a gram under the old system, prices are expected to
average about $8 initially, though the federal government predicts
competition will make the drug cheaper as more producers enter the
market. Health Canada says the number of patients consuming medical
marijuana in the country could increase to between 300,000 and 400,000
within a decade. PharmaCan Capital has already invested in three
medical marijuana outfits in B.C., Ontario and Quebec, and says it has
raised more than $10 million in the past 12 months.

CEO Paul Rosen says attitudes toward marijuana are shifting in Canada
- - and around the world in the industry's favour. "There's a lot of
cultural momentum, globally and within Canada, leading to a general,
more accepting, liberal understanding of what marijuana really is,"
says Rosen. In addition to Health Canada, medical marijuana operators
also must deal with local municipalities, where politicians and
residents aren't always ready to welcome the marijuana industry. In
Richmond, where MediJean is setting up shop, city councillors
initially prohibited medical marijuana production while leaving open
the possibility of approving applications on a case-by-case basis.
After months of poring over the proposal and the people behind it,
council voted to give MediJean its blessing in midMarch.

The commercial market also has its detractors among patients,
particularly those who have been growing their own marijuana. They
complain the prices will be too high under the new system and they
won't have the same access to the strains that work for them.

A group of patients won a Federal Court injunction March 21 that will
allow them to continue to grow and possess under the old rules until a
legal challenge of the updated regime is heard, likely within the next
year. Ottawa warned that allowing the old system to continue would
prevent the commercial market from fully developing.

Mattadeen, the strategy officer at MediJean, says he isn't worried. He
insists the market will be healthy, even with the injunction. "You're
talking about a pretty small number of people who are comfortable and
want to be able to grow their own product," he says.

"There's no reason for any licensed producer to view this particular
injunction as an issue for the business that we're trying to do." 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D