Pubdate: Mon, 15 Aug 2016
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Pages: A6-7
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network
Contact:  http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: Shawn Logan

MEDICAL POT PRODUCER HELPING PATIENTS 'TRANSFORM' THEIR LIVES

Alberta's Aurora Cannabis Boasts Thousands of Loyal Customers

Driving past the gravel driveway that leads to an unremarkable rural 
bungalow just outside the Village of Cremona, most would never know 
the property is also home to the fastest-growing manufacturer of 
medical marijuana in Canada.

Just beyond the rustic homestead, encircled by a stout, chain-link 
fence topped with barbed wire, sits a massive one-storey factory that 
this year is expected to produce 7,000 kg (about the weight of a 
full-grown African bull elephant) of cannabis for patients who've 
found relief for a wide range of symptoms thanks to a new frontier of medicine.

Aurora Cannabis Inc. is Alberta's only licensed producer of medical 
marijuana, and just seven months after it began selling dried 
marijuana through mail order, the company based in Mountain View 
County, about an hour's drive north of Calgary, already boasts 
thousands of loyal customers.

Cam Battley is Aurora's senior vice-president, and has also earned 
the nickname Captain Cannabis as the chair of the advocacy committee 
for the Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association, lobbying for 
a sector he argues is an important extension to the nation's 
health-care system.

When he's not extolling the virtues of a drug that not long ago was 
seen as a street-level scourge, Battley's a Cub Scout leader with the 
1st Campbellville Scouts just outside Mississauga, Ont.

"The purpose of what we're doing here is to help patients who have 
not been satisfied by traditional or conventional medical 
treatments," he said during a recent tour of the 55,200-square-foot, 
purpose-built facility in southern Alberta's foothills.

"What's most satisfying about this business and what makes me most 
passionate is when we talk to patients who've had their lives 
literally transformed by the use of medical cannabis."

It's less Cheech & Chong at Aurora, and more like Pfizer and Bayer - 
an industrial marijuana grow op with rigorous standards usually seen 
in large pharmaceutical companies. It's a world Battley is very 
familiar with, having joined the burgeoning medical cannabis industry 
after a career in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

Aurora is one of 34 licensed medical marijuana producers in Canada, 
the vast majority of them based in Ontario and B.C.

The factory operations began sprouting up after the federal 
government enacted Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) 
in June 2013, dumping home operations in which medical pot was 
cultivated by patients for personal use, in favour of much 
larger-scale, for-profit operations.

By the end of March 2016, the number of medical marijuana users 
registered by Health Canada had soared to 53,649.

With growth of about 10 per cent every month, Battley expects that 
number is now more than 85,000, and still growing by leaps and 
bounds. "Demand is growing very, very fast, and that's a measure of 
the scale of the unmet medical need," he said.

Some 64 people are employed at Aurora, which produces about two dozen 
cannabis strains named after mountains in the Canadian Rockies - 3 
Sisters, Tower and Odin among others - and production has blossomed 
to the point they're harvesting a crop of plants weekly.

Inside the facility, marijuana plants are cloned using cuttings from 
so-called mother plants that are then grown in sterile Petri dishes 
before moving on to a "flowering room," where they will continue to 
grow until they've become mature.

The buds from the plants are then stripped and placed in a drying 
room to remove moisture before they're apportioned, packaged and 
shipped to customers.

The rooms are kept immaculately clean, with recirculated air and 
sterile environments, though some rooms ofer an artistic nod to the 
product at the heart of the facility, including a small stained-glass 
window inside the secured entryway featuring a leafy cannabis plant 
in the middle of it.

Given the fact that the medical-grade weed is so potentially valuable 
to black marketeers, Health Canada security requirements are 
exceedingly strict.

Some 150 video cameras film every square inch of the facility, inside 
and out, and the data must be kept for two years for audits and investigations.

Every tiny bud or plant clipping is accounted for, and finished 
product, stored in silver protective bags each worth about $8,000 on 
the street, are kept behind a vault with concrete walls and a massive 
metal door.

"The security requirements are to make sure there's no diversion 
possible to the black market," Battley said.

"More importantly, I think, from a patient's perspective, is the 
quality regulations that ensure that the products that we grow and 
that we ship out to patients across Canada are absolutely pure and 
there are no contaminants such as you might find in a street product."

The Aurora facility uses no pesticides or gamma-irradiation, instead 
using tiny natural predators - good bugs, they're called - to attack 
pests that commonly prey on marijuana plants. Even as the medical 
marijuana business continues to boom in Canada, a bumper crop of 
prosperity is on the horizon with the federal government's pledge to 
legalize pot.

Justin Trudeau's Liberals are aiming to introduce legislation next 
spring, though it remains unclear when consumer marijuana will hit 
the market, or how the new regime will look.

Whatever the case, legalization of the drug seems inevitable, and 
Aurora and other producers will be in on the ground floor of the new 
marketplace.

"We were surprised last year when the Liberal government was elected 
and they reiterated the fact that, yes, they were serious with their 
election promise they were going to legalize the consumer use of 
cannabis," Battley said.

"So this is going to happen. It's going to obviously be good business 
- - it's going to have to be done exceedingly carefully and 
responsibly, and that imparts a particular responsibility to us as 
producers of cannabis."

That means those in the production and distribution side of the 
marijuana business will have to work closely with municipal, 
provincial and federal governments to ensure consumer pot is 
introduced safely to a broader customer base, Battley said.

It will also mean expansion, with demand expected to shift from the 
illicit marketplace to a new legal playing field.

"The demand for medical marijuana is already very, very significant 
and so we're preparing to expand simply to meet the demand for 
medical cannabis," Battley said.

"Layering on top of that the much larger demand for consumer cannabis 
means that our entire industry is going to have to grow, so a lot 
more production capacity is going to have to be required."

In the meantime, Battley said the industry is lobbying on a couple of 
fronts to improve access to the drug.

The association representing the medical cannabis industry is in 
negotiations with insurers and the feds to provide the same coverage 
and tax breaks available for other forms of medication.

"One of the next big challenges for patients and for producers of 
medical cannabis is getting patients reimbursement for their use of 
medical cannabis on their health insurance," Battley said.

"In some cases, the use of medical cannabis is actually less 
expensive than the former regimen of conventional prescription 
medicines patients were using.

"So this is a bit of a moral issue and it's certainly an economic 
issue for patients, and it's something we believe as an industry, 
through our association Cannabis Canada, is definitely worth fighting for."

The push is also on to convince the federal government to exempt the 
drug from sales tax, just like any other approved medication.

"It's a prescribed product and it's the only prescribed medicine on 
which GST and HST currently apply," Battley said.

Still a fledgling industry, Battley said its pioneers have to ensure 
it grows the right way, quelling any fears that continue to linger in 
the public that it's somehow not a legitimate medical operation.

"If we ever forgot the federal government's policy objectives here, 
which is to keep cannabis out of the hands of kids, keep the profits 
out of the hands of criminals and to take a vast underground, 
illegitimate market and bring it up into the light of legitimacy ... 
that would be a major problem," he said.

"So we have to make sure that that doesn't happen - we have to be 
incredibly responsible and get this right the first time."

[sidebar]

By the Numbers

The growth of the medical marijuana industry in Canada has 
skyrocketed over the past few years. Here's a look at the burgeoning 
industry by the numbers:

53,649 The number of registered medical marijuana patients under the 
federal MMPR up to the end of March 2016.

23,930 The number of registered medical marijuana patients as of the 
end of June 2015.

85,000 The estimated number of users today, though Health Canada has 
yet to update its quarterly numbers.

6,000 The number of medical marijuana patients currently supplied by 
Alberta's Aurora Cannabis.

3,082 Amount in kilograms of dried marijuana sold to MMPR clients in 
the first quarter of 2016.

4,037 Amount in kilograms of dried marijuana produced by licensed 
producers in the first quarter of 2016.

7,000 Amount of medical marijuana in kilograms expected to be 
produced at Alberta's Aurora Cannabis in 2016.

584 Amount in kilograms of cannabis oil sold to MMPR clients in the 
first quarter of 2016.

892 Amount in kilograms of cannabis oil produced by licensed 
producers in the first quarter of 2016.

2.8 Average amount in grams per day of dried medical marijuana 
authorized per client.

1.013 Average amount in grams per day of dried medical marijuana per 
client shipment.

34 Number of producers of medical marijuana licensed by Health Canada.

19 Number of licensed medical marijuana producers in Ontario, the 
province with the most facilities.

1 Number of licensed medical marijuana producers in Alberta.

5 The number of provinces and territories in Canada that lack any 
medical marijuana production facilities (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland 
and Labrador, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut).

1,284 The number of applications received by Health Canada as of 
March 2015 to become a licensed producer of medical marijuana.

252 The number of applications refused as of March 2015. 935 The 
number of applications rejected or withdrawn as of March 2015.

246 The number of inspections conducted on licensed producers to 
monitor and enforce compliance with regulations, as of March 2015.

5 The number of recalls of licensed marijuana to date.

150 The possession cap of medical marijuana for an individual patient 
under the MMPR in grams, or 30 times the daily quantity prescribed by 
a doctor, whichever is less.

681 The number of drug offences associated with cannabis laid by 
Calgary police in 2015.

988 The number of drug offences associated with cannabis laid by 
Calgary police in 2014.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom