Organic growers hope to bag new Canadian medical marijuana contract
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
The Canadian Press: Organic growers hope to bag new federal medical marijuana contract
Organic growers from Vancouver Island hope to bag the new federal contract to grow and distribute medical marijuana across Canada with the promise of supplying better, cheaper and different varieties of weed.Public Works Canada has extended the deadline for bids on the contract currently held by Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which operates a grow operation deep within a mine in northern Manitoba.
No reason for the extension has been given. Companies that hope to win the contract say they are waiting for more information from Ottawa to complete their bids by the new Sept. 29 deadline.
Eric Nash, co-owner of Island Harvest in British Columbia, said he is eager to submit a proposal to supply high-grade strains of sativa and indica marijuana to registered users, some of whom have been unhappy with the quality of the government-approved pot from the mine.
“We want this contract because we know that we can supply a good-quality organic product to patients,” said Nash, who has been legally supplying medicinal pot to a few registered users from his provincially inspected organic operation in the Cowichan Valley.
“What we would ideally like to do is gear up strain-specific plants for patients with different medical conditions. Many patients have tried the government product which is just one strain that may work for someone with multiple sclerosis, but it doesn’t necessarily work for someone with cancer or HIV-AIDS.”
I’ve spoken before with Philippe Lucas of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society who has described the abandoned zinc and copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, as one of the most environmentally polluted places in Canada. Lucas says that the Flin Flon marijuana seems to be grown to meet only the bare minimum requirements laid out in numerous court decisions.
The cynic in me says the Ottawa government does it this way on purpose to make the Canadian medical marijuana program as unattractive to patients as possible. Supply the people with one poor strain of mineshaft marijuana, and then when it doesn’t provide much therapeutic relief you can exclaim, “See, we told you medical marijuana is a sham!”
Here in Oregon (and likewise in most medical states) patients can grow their own medicine (or have someone grow for them) and there is a bounty of different strains for different conditions. Each December, Oregon NORML hosts the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards and 28 different strains are judged by 28 patients with various conditions and evaluated for medical efficacy against their particular conditions, and I know of similar types of evaluations in California and Washington State (NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre will be keynoting at this year’s OMCA). The data from the past eight OMCAs have been entered into a database and Oregon patients can learn from others which strains work best for their affliction.
Genetic diversity and self-sufficiency help explain why Oregon has one-tenth the population of Canada, but we have ten times the number of registered cardholders.
Topics: Canada, OMCA, Oregon
requirements for opening a medical marijuana dispensary in san mateo county, california