cannabisnews.com: Canada's First Medical Marijuana Crop Flourishes 





Canada's First Medical Marijuana Crop Flourishes 
Posted by FoM on January 26, 2002 at 10:37:07 PT
By Toby Harnden 
Source: Sydney Morning Herald 
In many countries the arguments for and against cannabis legalisation continue to rage inconclusively, libertarians pitched against traditionalists. In Canada the debate is being taken one dramatic step further.Video cameras, reinforced steel doors and computerised passwords protect the site, hidden deep in the bedrock beneath Trout Lake, on the outskirts of a remote mining settlement in frozen Manitoba. The identities of the workers involved are kept secret to protect their safety.
Flin Flon, named after a character in Preston Muddock's obscure 1905 book The Sunless City, is the setting for the first government-run cannabis-growing operation; the laboratory where the raw material for up to a million state-issued reefers is being produced - above board but underground. For the time being, its clients are those Canadian citizens whose physical suffering is so great that no other relief from pain is available. But Flin Flon is fast becoming the inspiration for marijuana proselytisers everywhere, the vanguard of the drive towards making the drug legal and available for all. The first Canadian harvest is due in the next few weeks, and the product - close to a tonne of which should be grown over the next five years - is to be sent out to people with diseases from epilepsy to AIDS and cancer to multiple sclerosis. Clinical trials will be held to assess its potency and effectiveness.Medicinal marijuana - or "marihuana" (the h is for health), as the Federal Government prefers to spell it - was made legal in August after an Ontario court ruled that the national ban was unconstitutional. If the state was going to have to permit its patients to use it, reasoned the federal Health Minister, Allan Rock, then the state had better start providing it too. The $7 million contract was put out to tender, and Prairie Plant Systems won, with a record of sustaining vegetation in disused parts of the Flin Flon mine. Prairie Plant's founder and chief executive, Brent Zettl, 39, first experimented with phytotrons, or artificial-growth chambers, more than a decade ago. In the 1970s mine workers in Ontario had noticed that their discarded orange pips and apple seeds had sprouted quickly and grown several centimetres high before withering due to lack of light. Mr Zettl started in Flin Flon with hibiscuses, Madagascar periwinkle and sweet basil. His most important product became roses, which he found grew five times more quickly underground than they did in the open air. Having smelled his roses, drug companies woke up to the other possibilities available.Mr Zettl says the paranoia about security is justified because he and his staff have already received death threats from irate drug dealers who believe the Federal Government will put them out of business.A big gripe is that the hurdles that must be overcome to become registered as a medicinal cannabis user could lead to some deserving cases dying before they get there. Two doctors have to certify that every other form of pain relief has been tried without success. But the Canadian Medical Association has declined to back medicinal marijuana, saying that clinical trials are needed first. In the meantime, some Mounties are by and large ignoring the "compassion clubs" that have sprung up around the country to dispense cannabis for medical use to those they judge as deserving cases. Like most Canadians, the Mayor of Flin Flon, Dennis Ballard - whose wife suffers from fibromyalgia, which causes constant muscle pain - says the Federal Government should go full steam ahead. "I'm all for it." The biggest fear of those against medicinal marijuana is that it is a stalking horse for the full legalisation of cannabis. Mr Rock has called for "a discussion in Canada about all of this".With the Mounties turning a blind eye to cannabis being handed out by the compassionate clubs, and the courts reluctant to prosecute recreational users, it seems only a matter of time before the law is changed. The Telegraph, LondonComplete Title: Canada's First Medical Marijuana Crop Flourishes - Underground but Above Board Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)Author: Toby Harnden Published: January 26, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Sydney Morning HeraldWebsite: http://www.smh.com.au/Contact: letters smh.fairfax.com.auRelated Articles & Web Sites:Health Canadahttp://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htm Problem Pot - NOW Magazinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11843.shtmlPot On Back Burner http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11797.shtmlPicture of Flin Flon's Cannabis Plantshttp://www.medicalmarihuana.ca/images/flinfloncroplg.jpg 
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Comment #1 posted by Morgan on January 26, 2002 at 11:21:41 PT
Goals
"Mr Zettl says the paranoia about security is justified because he and his staff have already received death threats from irate drug dealers who believe the Federal Government will put them out of business."Isn't this the government's major goal of this whole 'War on Drugs"?Oh... I'm sorry, I forgot... that's just what they SAY it is.Wink, wink.
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