Pubdate: Sat, 02 Jan 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Allan Maki
Page: S1

ALBERTA'S GROWING INDUSTRY

Aurora Cannabis Inc., a publicly traded company with Health Canada's 
approval to grow and sell medical marijuana, is a significant success 
story in its field, Allan Maki reports

This is the great indoors, the place where you can stand at the end 
of a long metal table, stare straight ahead to its opposite end some 
75 metres away and you will be lost in a mighty greenness.

You will see thousands of familiar jagged-edged leaves reaching up to 
the lights inside Alberta's largest grow-op. Seconds later, your mind 
taps into a stash of marijuana gag lines, from this facility being a 
"joint venture" to "your staff room must be well-stocked with Doritos."

Chris Mayerson smiles politely at such witticisms. They are 
unavoidable the moment people find out what he does for a living; 
that he is the chief cultivator for Aurora Cannabis Inc., a publicly 
traded company that has Health Canada's approval to grow and sell 
marijuana for medicinal purposes. It's a job Mr. Mayerson takes 
seriously, knowing that his handiwork is assisting those who benefit 
from the drug's pain-numbing qualities.

"Everyone knows someone who is using it for whatever reason," Mr. 
Mayerson says. "The stigma [of marijuana] is being removed."

Aurora, named to instill a sense of nature, was the first Alberta 
producer to receive a federal licence and, along with that, a set of 
defined rules on everything from how much dried marijuana can be 
produced during the length of the licence and how much can be sold 
(maximum shipment at one time, per patient, is 150 grams). Health 
Canada's position is that "dried marijuana is not an approved drug or 
medicine in Canada ... but the courts have required reasonable access 
to a legal source of marijuana when authorized by a health-care practitioner."

Aurora chief executive officer Terry Booth and his partners got their 
licence in February and started planting at the end of April. Mr. 
Booth invested $2.5-million into the project. He was optimistic the 
harvests would be good financially. He and his fellow investors were 
wrong. It exceeded their expectations.

"This last harvest was our eighth. It came in more than double our 
expected yield," Mr. Booth says. "We were budgeting for 1.4 pounds 
per [growing] light and we just did close to three pounds per light. 
So, 136 kilograms times $8 per gram [equals] $1,088,000 versus around 
$500,000 we expected. That's significant.

"When we hit full production, we will be harvesting this amount every 
nine days."

Aurora is not the biggest marijuana operator in the country. Of the 
26 companies that have licences to cultivate and/ or sell, 14 are 
based in Ontario and six in British Columbia.

The first grower licensed by Health Canada dating back to 2000 was 
Brent Zettl, the chief executive officer of Prairie Plant Systems 
Inc. in Saskatoon. He has been hailed as a pioneer of medicinal 
marijuana. He says his operation almost went under financially, a 
victim of high start-up costs and borrowed money with high interest rates..

"We lost money for the first eight years of the contract because of 
all the things we had to get through," Mr. Zettl says, referring to 
the many Health Canada regulations. "So why did we continue to do it? 
We wanted to prove a point by taking a plant and turning it into the 
manufacturing of a [medicinal] drug."

Aurora scored a significant win earlier this month when it was 
awarded the national distribution rights to Mystabis. It's a 
marijuana inhaler that serves up a measured dose of cannabis.

Aurora was the first company to construct a facility - 55,000 square 
feet - solely for the production of medicinal marijuana. It functions 
in plain sight in a sprawling hayfield in Mountain View County north 
of Calgary. That's the outside view. Inside, it's a $11.5-million, 
high-tech operation that requires you to dress in throw-away medical 
apparel that covers your shoes, hands, head and any facial hair. It's 
done to keep the plants free of germs or cross-contamination.

You must also wear special lenses to protect your eyes, and you find 
out why when you step into a rectangular storage room, all of it 
filled with full-grown plants, thriving under the strict lighting 
that gives the room a science-fiction feel, as though it's a scene 
from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

"Yeah, it is surreal in here," Mr. Mayerson says.

Aurora has its own power generator and its own water plant for 
watering plants. Everything is done to detail. Temperatures and the 
level of water nutrients are monitored. Every batch is numbered, 
treated, trimmed and tracked. And keeping tabs on everyone and 
everything are more than 150 security cameras.

Members of the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit stationed in Red 
Deer contacted Aurora and were allowed to come in on harvest day to 
watch how marijuana is handled, from plant to package. RCMP officers 
from Didsbury routinely drive by the facility to ensure all is well 
without drawing attention to its exact locale.

"There's a big difference between growing cannabis and trying not to 
get caught than being able to do it legally," says Mr. Mayerson, who 
ran a decorative concrete business before changing vocations.

Now he adheres to the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations and 
has all the resources he needs to produce the perfect plants.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom