Pubdate: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 Source: National Post (Canada) Copyright: 2016 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286 Series: http://news.nationalpost.com/features/o-cannabis Pubdate: 17 Oct 2016 Author: Brian Hutchinson Page: A2-A3 INSIDE THE GREEN RUSH Denver's Pot Pioneers Have Some Advice For Canada As It Moves Into The Marijuana Market: Keep It Simple. Overregulation, They Warn, Could Doom The Effort. John Lord steps from his SUV and into his giant cannabis factory, near this city's deserted stockyards. Cattle once dominated commerce in the Colorado capital, but marijuana is the prized commodity now. Before Colorado voters defied the U. S. government's longstanding cannabis prohibition and amended their state's constitution in 2012, making the drug accessible to any local resident or visitor aged 21 or older, Lord used the expansive warehouse to manufacture baby products. His child car seats were sold in major retail stores, such as Walmart, Target and Toys 'R' Us. Now he's a pioneer in what's being hailed as a lucrative "green rush." And he's got some advice for politicians and stakeholders in Canada, in their efforts to legalize recreational pot: Keep the rules simple, he says. Don't overregulate, or the whole effort might fail. All over Denver, one notices the sweet, pungent fragrance of pot. It's not always the smell of marijuana being smoked, either. It's the scent of healthy, growing plants. After Colorado's recreational pot laws came into effect in 2014, Denver became a major marijuana production centre, with dozens of indoor growing operations. Entrepreneurs have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into raising bushels of high-potency pot. A transplanted New Zealander, Lord grows what seems like an endless number of plants inside his 140,000-square foot facility. He won't divulge the precise number he has under cultivation at any one time - that's a proprietary secret, says the diminutive businessman - but he claims there are enough to make his facility the largest licensed grow-operation in the United States. And it's still not big enough. Lord is planning to expand his factory's footprint by another 70,000 square feet. His is a vertically integrated, plant-to-sale operation. With the help of some 500 employees, Lord grows and then processes his green gold into dozens of different products. They range from perfectly trimmed dried flower ( or "bud") to powerful concentrates such as oils and wax, to cannabis-infused candies and chocolate. He is also making cannabis vaporizers - the discreet, smokeless devices are considered the new big thing in pot. Lord's products are intended to give consumers a heady buzz or a relaxing body stone, known among aficionados as "couch lock." Other concoctions derived from specific marijuana strains are meant simply to help induce sleep or relieve pain, without any psychotropic effects. His privately owned company, LivWell Enlightened Health, sells its homegrown cannabis from 14 retail stores it owns and operates in and around Denver. It also offers wholesale cannabis and custom-label "edibles" to retailers around t he state. LivWell's busiest shop, says one of Lord's executives, sells US$200,000 worth of processed marijuana every week. "I underestimated the market when I first got involved," Lord says. "I had no idea how widespread cannabis use is in society." Other Denver-based entrepreneurs share the sentiment. A few kilometres south of the LivWell facility sits a nondescript, 10,000-square-foot former mini-blinds factory. It's now a thriving grow-operation, one of several in a stable co-owned by former high school biology teacher Tim Cullen and Ralph Morgan, a former medical device salesman. Their cannabis venture, Colorado Harvest Company ( CHC), produces almost 320 kilograms of high-grade marijuana every month. That's a lot of pot, but not enough to supply their four retail stores in the Denver area. The company has to buy wholesale marijuana from other producers just to meet customer demand. Cullen and Morgan have expanded their operations, and their horizons. In addition to forming separate companies that produce high-potency cannabis oils and vaporizer products, they are looking at further expansion and investment opportunities. Annual revenues from all of their operations grew 1,200 per cent in 2014, another 400 per cent last year, and are now between $ 50 million and $100 million, says Morgan. CHC has 80 employees, including five scientists with PhDs. And they're just getting started. Across the state, where the first legal, recreational marijuana stores opened on Jan. 1, 2014, revenues are exceeding almost everyone's expectations. In 2015, total revenues from Colorado's 432 licensed cannabis shops rang in at US$ 996 million. This year, that figure is expected to reach about $1.2 billion. State-imposed cannabis licence fees and levies amounted to $ 135 million last year, a decent return for taxpayers. But don't be seduced by the juicy figures. Running a successful, plant-to-sale marijuana conglomerate, even in free-market Colorado, is a high-risk, capital-intensive enterprise filled with legal requirements and regulatory hurdles that keep changing. Keeping in line with Colorado's marijuana laws is a costly headache, Lord grumbles. "We employ 45 people in our compliance department alone," he says. "Compliance regulations are the biggest barrier to entry in this business, and the toughest on the small, mom-and-pop operations. There have been 141 regulatory changes in the last year alone." Cullen agrees that the rules could be less onerous. "Legalization was sold to voters ( during the 2012 ballot initiative) as something to be regulated like alcohol," he says. "But it's not even close. The only similarity is the 21 (years of age) minimum requirement for customers. We have purchase limits, unlike alcohol, and pretty stringent advertising, packaging and labelling restrictions. All of our ingredients must be declared, including what's been sprayed on the plant. The bar is set high." Complicating matters even more is the state's two-tier system, one for medical marijuana, the other for recreational pot. The state legalized marijuana for medical use in 2009, and taxes that product at a rate three times lower than the 22- percent rate applied to recreational pot, at the retail end of the supply chain. And at all times, during their cultivation, processing and sale, marijuana intended for the medical and recreational markets must be kept separate. Whatever their intended use, cannabis plants are notoriously high- maintenance. Vulnerable to pests, mould and mildew, they require a massive amount of care to reach their maximum buzz-worthiness. "We're still learning how to improve something that people used to do secretly, hidden in a closet," Lord says. "And we're doing it on an industrial scale." At Lord's cannabis factory, everything starts in a petri dish. LivWell uses a method of tissue culture to grow pot. Cannabis cells are extracted from female, flower-producing plants - there are countless varieties, or strains - and placed on a piece of gel. After one or two weeks, the fledgling plant is transferred to a more robust growth medium, a coconut fibre mulch, and then into a nursery. After more time there, the potted plants are placed in a warm, humid and brightly lit "spring" room. There they are fed a proprietary solution of water and nutrients, and receive light 24 hours a day. Once the plants are ready to flower, they are moved to yet another growing room, with heat and lighting systems set to mimic the cooler, shorter days of late summer and autumn. Large buds begin to develop; once they become full, solid and fragrant, it is time to harvest. Over at CHC, the growing process is slightly different. The company eschews tissue culture and starts with plant cuttings, also known as clones. Like LivWell and every other licensed marijuana grower in Colorado, all of CHC's plants have their roots in the black market. "We had to start somewhere," shrugs Cullen. "The important thing is that every plant that's grown now is in the regulated system." Every marijuana plant and product meant for the medical and recreational markets is taxed by the state, through every stage of production. Manifesting allows regulators to keep close tabs on what is produced, and on revenues generated through their sale. "We have to keep track of every frickin' gram we produce," Lord says. Producers can also expect random visits from various officials, such as fire, building and insurance inspectors. Potrepreneurs such as Lord, Cullen and Morgan keep their facilities sparkling clean. Floors are bleach mopped every night, machinery is wiped down, and staff keep themselves tidy. It's the same story inside their retail operations. "Budtenders" receive several weeks of training before they start work behind the sales counter. They are expected to understand how their products differ, according to their strain and potency. They are also trained to give proper advice to customers looking for specific results. Retail competition is fierce. Local zoning regulations determine where recreational pot shops are located, which means they tend to cluster in certain areas. Along a strip of Denver's busy S. Broadway corridor south of the downtown core, for example, 17 pot shops are squeezed into a mile-long strip. CHC's flagship store was among the first shops to open on the Green Mile. "There was a three-hour wait to get inside when we first opened in January 2014," recalls Cullen. In most stores, the selection is impressive, the budtenders courteous and knowledgeable. As for the customers, there are all kinds. In little more than two years, Lord says, "marijuana has become normalized. I thought our typical customer would be a 20- something guy. But it's a real melting pot. You'll see a guy in a suit, then a guy in dreadlocks who will be holding the door open for grandma." There's something for everyone inside, he says. Lord lIkens his product range to the sort of beverage products one might find in a local liquor store. "From low-calorie soda to whisky, we've got it covered." * WEED GONE BAD Cold sweats, dizziness, nausea - and those are just the ill effects suffered by some adult pot users. When he arrived at a southern Ontario hospital emergency room, Cody Morin was badly dehydrated and vomiting blood. He was rushed into quarantine as doctors worried he was infected with the Ebola virus. His father wasn't allowed at his bedside without wearing a haz-mat suit. Hours before, Morin was at his fiancee's Whitby, Ont., home after work, where he smoked a bowl of pot, a daily routine for the drywaller, accustomed to smoking at least four joints a day. Not long afterward, he was overwhelmed by cold sweats, dizziness and nausea. He vomited uncontrollably for about two hours before his fiancee drove him to hospital in nearby Oshawa. The agony was familiar. Morin had been in and out of hospital for several years with similar bouts, which lasted for six hours at times. "You instantly feel light-headed, like you're going to pass out, and your stomach starts spinning like crazy," Morin said. "I was so dehydrated (from vomiting) when I went to the hospital they couldn't stick an IV in my arm because my veins kept collapsing." Mercifully, as Morin lay in isolation during the horrific episode in late 2014, doctors brought in a stomach specialist who gave him the diagnosis that would ultimately relieve his misery - he had cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. Scientists don't know what causes the condition, but they believe avoiding marijuana is the only cure, said Dr. Andrew Monte, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado's school of medicine who has studied the syndrome. Morin initially balked at the diagnosis, having smoked for well over a decade, but he watched his symptoms disappear after he stayed off marijuana. Now, he has discovered other pot smokers who endured similar torment. Emergency rooms at two Colorado hospitals have seen a doubling in the rate of patients with cyclical vomiting syndromes such as cannabinoid hyperemesis, said Monte, who believes the spike is largely due to the legalization of marijuana. Hospitals across Colorado see several new cases every week. The growing prevalence of the debilitating condition was among several unexpected health effects of legalizing pot for medicinal and, later, recreational use, he said. Monte said the most concerning unexpected health effects have involved children who consume marijuana, mostly in edible products, by accident. Pot is often sold in chocolates, candies and other goodies. In the five years before medicinal pot was legalized, the Children's Hospital Colorado had not treated any youngsters for mistakenly ingesting marijuana. In the second year of medical legalization, there were 14 cases. Across the state, the rate of children younger than nine being hospitalized for possible marijuana exposure has increased dramatically, according to a public health committee that has been measuring the impact of legalization in Colorado. There was roughly one case for every 100,000 hospitalizations in Colorado from 2001 to 2009, the initial period of medical legalization. The rate spiked to 13 cases per 100,000 in 2014 through to June 2015, the first year and a half of retail legalization. Children who eat marijuana candy bars or cookies can develop pneumonia from a depressed central nervous system. Their heart rate can double normal levels to 200 beats per minute. They can become comatose. "A hundred milligrams in an adult may cause some hallucinations, may cause their heart rate to go very fast, which may be a risk, but it's a risk in a subset of patients," Monte said. "Every single pediatric patient shouldn't have 100 milligrams, and that's really only one cookie." Monte said edible products should not be sold in retail pot shops, given the health risks. According to his research, edibles are behind most health care visits due to marijuana intoxication, for patients of all ages. Concentrations of THC in these products can vary wildly, while the effects can take hours to fully kick in. Marijuana has medicinal properties and is often prescribed for a long list of ailments, such as chronic pain, nausea linked to cancer chemotherapy, insomnia and depressed mood associated with chronic diseases, and pain due to multiple sclerosis. Overconsumption, however, can lead to increased anxiety, rapid heart rates, high blood pressure and vomiting, among other symptoms that land users in emergency departments. A review of scientific literature on the health effects of marijuana use found substantial evidence that pot smoke contains many of the carcinogens that are in tobacco smoke, and that heavy pot smoking is linked to bronchitis, including chronic cough and wheezing. The literature review, conducted by Colorado's public health committee, found adolescent and young adult users are at higher risk of developing psychotic symptoms or disorders in adulthood. In Canada, public health officials have a better chance of reducing these and other harms by legalizing and regulating marijuana than by keeping it in the illicit market, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer at Vancouver Coastal Health. "We'll know what's in it and how it's grown, what the strength is, and the product will be labelled. We' ll know who made it, who sold it," Lysyshyn said, adding regulations should also include childproof packaging and other steps to keep pot away from children. "If there are problematic products out there, then we'll have them withdrawn off the market. People used to go blind from drinking moonshine; that doesn't happen anymore. We have to get safe products out there that people can use safely." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt