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Big Weed's Distancing Act
Pubdate: Thu, 16 Nov 2006
Source: NOW Magazine (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 NOW Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.nowtoronto.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/282
Author: Matt Mernagh
BIG WEED'S DISTANCING ACT
Cannasat's Biz Meet Stokes Pharma-Pot Threat to Compassion Clubs
I arrive at U of T's Massey College prepared to celebrate five years
of Health Canada's Marijuana Medical Access Regulations stoner-style.
Alas, our hosts, Cannasat Therapeutics, are hoity-toity wine sippers.
Lucky for me I wore my Goodwill white tuxedo jacket. The finger-food
sampling at this November 2 investor seminar for the company, which
hopes to market cannabis pharmaceuticals, is fantastic. But I'm
barely able to nibble the shrimp skewers and smoked salmon puffs
because I haven't had time to take my marijuana meds.
It's a delicious irony that sparking a med doobie would be frowned
upon here. The fact is, while Cannasat Therapeutics celebrates its
successes making use of Health Canada's med marijuana program (it's
part owner of the company that holds the feds' sole growing
contract), folks using legally ambiguous compassion clubs live in fear.
Still, the happenings here are intriguing. It's certainly the first
time I've listened to speakers yak about cannabinoids, CBDs and
tetrahydracannabinol without puff-puff-passing. But throughout the
proceedings, my horribly arthritic back keeps intruding on my attention.
McGill University Health Centre research director Dr. Mark Ware
explains that "we have THC receptors all over our bodies. They are
working in all of you right now. If we play around with them we can
create an effect such as hunger, pain relief or tremor control."
Cannasat Therapeutics' scientific affairs VP Umar Syed declares, "CBD
is a very exciting molecule. It's very effective against
schizophrenia." Then his amazing revelation: cannabis is "treating
cancer and shrinking tumours." Cannasat Therapeutics, he say, has
patented technology to deliver the plant in a form doctors will
prescribe. "We think this is the bandwidth to be on."
Brent Zettl, prez of Prairie Plant Systems, the Manitoba-based
company partially owned by Cannasat that produces for Health Canada's
med pot program, takes the podium. Zettl boasts that the feds have
asked him to increase production by 80 per cent not exactly good news
for the med-cannabis community, which fears HC is eliminating the
grow-your-own option for licensed users, forcing everyone to purchase
one strain of pot medicine from one company.
Currently, PPS supplies only 247 licensed med marijuana users from an
operation buried under Manitoba's Trout Lake. Unlike most growers,
who like to boast of their farming secrets, Zettl reveals very
little: no mention of feeding schedule, kind of nutrients (organic or
chemical), growth cycle, whether it's soil or hydroponic, or the
cannabis cloning process.
Instead, we get "This is the cola" and "We call these lower branches
tweeder buds."
It's info every grade nine science student who's read Ask Ed knows,
and every one of them could grow better pot than PPS's, which, though
it's improving, doesn't rate with compassion club stuff.
Zettl blames PPS's product problems on the feds' contract and the
RCMP. The company, he says, has been told by Health Canada to use
only one plant, but they are lobbing for the right to grown different
strains. "We're encouraging more variety," he says.
Cannasat chair Moses Znaimer invites the gathering to tour PPS's
biosecure underground growth chambers. "If you can ever visit, it's a
trip," like there's a daily 4:20 tour. Funny, I asked Health Canada
for a media invite and was denied permission. Guess it's only for shareholders.
I'm also a little put out by the fact that when Znaimer speaks, he
uses the term "social change" instead of "legalization." And when he
wraps up by introducing some of the dignitaries in the room,
including his own family physician, he makes no mention of respected
Toronto Compassion Centre funder and hemp entrepreneur Dom Cramer,
who's sitting with me in the third row.
I'm struck by the way prohibition prevents compassion folks from
engaging in the very same dialogue and marketing that Cannasat
Therapeutics monopolizes.
Afterwards, during the schmooze, the one-time Citytv mogul gives a
feisty interview. He jabs at my suggestion that he's been catering to
the cannabis community for 30-something years by means of the
station's nighttime programming. "I'm about social change," he tells
me. "My motive is a social science pursuit. The business guys are in
it for the business; I'm a social activist."
Znaimer seems surprised by the idea that I'm managing my horrific
arthritic pain so well. That's because I'm working hard to cast off
my inner disabled dude for an imaginative, sociable stoner. Maybe I
should have shown up in my sickly flannel garb stinking of illness.
He informs me, "If you have pain, [pot] is something that takes your
mind off it. Sick people have to have access to it."
True, but "you're the only one who can wear the "legal dealer' T," I
tell him. And the more important his company becomes, the stronger
the possibility Health Canada will disallow legal grow-your-owners
and the department of justice will use the supposed supply solution
to crack down on compassion clubs.
Znaimer responds bluntly that if med users get grass from the black
market, "they overpay. Ours is $5 a gram versus $15 a gram." Either
his market research is wack or a dealer is righteously ripping him
off. Quality-consistent med cannabis is priced at $6 to $9 a gram.
"You don't get social change without investment," he tells me. "More
and more companies are engaging in this space. As you know, the first
through the door doesn't naturally win. Participation of credible
companies will change the legal status through widespread use."
One would think 15,000 toking at Queen's Park demonstrates widespread
use, and thousands using compassion clubs shows that people want many
avenues of legal choice. And that's probably the one thing Znaimer
and I agree on: med users need a marketplace.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine