Pubdate: Mon, 15 Aug 2016
Source: Northumberland Today (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Sun Media
Contact: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/letters
Website: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5003
Author: Pete Fisher
Page: A1

BUSINESS AT MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IS GROWING, SAYS OWNER

ALDERVILLE - The owner of a full service marijuana dispensary says his
pot business is growing since a story was published in Northumberland
Today.

"Particularly I'm getting a lot of seniors coming in," said owner Tim
Tucker. "It brought in a lot of people that are already smoking, but
they wanted to become legal. It's done a good thing."

Northumberland Today first published the story on Thursday about the
South Shore Wellness Full Service Cannabis Dispensary located at 8987
County Road 45 in Roseneath.

"At least 40 per cent of the people coming in asking for documents
would be over 55," Tucker said. "They were coming in, getting their
doctors to sign off so they are now able to be covered legally."

The facility sells an assortment of marijuana in different forms,
including cookies.

With the increase in volume, Tucker said if someone gets pulled over,
and they have marijuana, "they aren't getting a big court trip."

Tucker also explained he is negotiating with the Band Council in
Alderville about leasing a building to grow marijuana.

There will be a community meeting on Aug. 24 in Alderville to get
feedback on the proposed project.

"Regulations have come out and they are favourable to us so we're
going ahead with this community meeting to try to convince the Band to
allow us to put a guarded (facility) on the reserve for patients."

If the proposal is accepted by the community, it's unknown the amount
of plants that would be grown. "It's totally dependent on the number
of patients who are interested," Tucker said. "One of the new
regulations states, every gram that is on a patients permit, it takes
so many grams to equal so many plants, so for me to give an accurate
number would be impossible because it would depend on the number of
patients and how many plants each one was individually allowed to have."

The building he is looking at leasing is 5,000 square
feet.

Tucker said there were two ways you can grow marijuana; one as a
patient, another as a licensed producer.

"There was an injunction on the MMAR when it was banned. The MMAR was
a program that allowed patients to grow their own or to designate
another grower to grow it for them," Tucker said. "We did provide that
service to patients growing for those who cannot. So Jim Bob and the
Band were a little bit nervous about leasing to us until this
clarification on what the new regulations would be."

Tucker explained that Medical Marijuana Access Regulations was the
original medical marijuana program in Canada and that was replaced by
another which is the set of regulations that basically took away
patients rights to grow, Tucker noted.

"Then what happened is a group of patients with dispensaries took it
to the Supreme Court and it was called the Allard decision and that
forced the government to come out with new regulations, which have
just come out, that are called the Access to Medical Marijuana
Regulations," he said. "Those are the freshly minted regulations. Now
patients have the right to choose between purchasing from a government
licensed, growing it themselves or having someone like us grow it for
them."

Tucker stated he and the employees must be licensed.

"Myself and every member of my staff are either licensed or patients
that are licensed. The Supreme Court decision allows patient to
patient transfer of medication. That' s basically the only legal way
you can go about it," he said. "So my staff each have to have their
own prescription so when they pass medication to the public, assuming
the public has theirs (prescription) then it's a legal transfer.

"I couldn't have somebody that's not licensed do it, otherwise it's
technically trafficking."

Regarding a number of dispensaries in Toronto that were busted several
months ago, Tucker said that was mainly due to municipal zoning issues.

"My store in Toronto had a dispensary literally in the same hallway
that was shut down because they weren't above board and they left us
alone because we ran by the rules," he said. "They've never touched
us. It still continues on to this day."
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