Prairie Plant Systems Inc. has been contracted by Health Canada, Canada’s healthcare bureaucracy, to become the official supplier of research grade marijuana.
The Canadian government will pay $5.75 million to the Saskatoon company over five years to grow a ton (2000 pounds) of marijuana. The company will also dry, process and roll over a million marijuana cigarettes.
Prairie Plant Systems Inc. will grow the marijuana 360 meters underground in an unused shaft of a copper and zinc mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba.
“When they asked us about security, we told them that basically it was 360 meters underground and there was only one entrance,” said Brent Zettel, president of Prairie Plant Systems Inc. “They didn’t quite believe us…we had to bring them out and show them.”
Prairie Plant Systems Inc. will also distribute marijuana to patients authorized by Health Canada to legally use marijuana. The patients will not have to pay for the marijuana, but the patients and their doctors must take part in clinical research to determine the efficacy of cannabis for people suffering from diseases like AIDS and cancer. The clinical trials will begin within the year.
“The contract to grow medical marijuana in Canada is similar to the one currently in place in the U.S. between the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Mississippi/Oxford,” said Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director. “However, Canadian patients and their advocates need to make sure that the Canadian program is an expansive one, rather than the U.S. model that only provides legal marijuana to eight patients.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director at (202) 483-8751 or Brent Zettel, president of Prairie Plant Systems at (306) 975-1207.
