A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE

A Day In The Life...with Chilliwack-Kent Marijuana Party Candidate
David Ferguson

There's toasted hemp seed samples for customers to try on the front
counter of Marijuana Party candidate David Ferguson's Agassiz health
food store.

Great for garnishing salads, the hemp seeds are an "amazing food
source" that taste something like sunflower seeds.

Other hemp products in the store include hemp granola and hemp oil, a
light, not-unpleasant tasting oil.

"Hemp oil has essential fatty acids," explained Ferguson, who owns
Black Sea Organics in Agassiz and Treehouse Health Foods in Hope.

"It contains Omega three, six and nine enzyme groups. It's very
powerful for maintaining radiant health and slowing down the aging
process, keeping eyesight and skin healthy. A lot of people who are
chronically sick don't have that enzyme."

Ferguson would like to see more hemp products (the fibre is excellent
for clothing) but government regulations get in the way, he said. The
hemp plant grows bigger than other plants in its family and contains
minimal THC (the active ingredient in marijuana)-if any at all,
according to Ferguson.

"We can revolutionize our society with hemp," he said.

And while there are a variety of hemp products in the store, there is
nothing from cousin plant marijuana, which Ferguson again blames on
government regulations.

Marijuana-the centre of the Marijuana party platform-has great
medicinal benefits, he said.

"It's a strange rule of thumb. The more dangerous a plant is, the
greater the medicinal benefit," he said, citing as an example
digitalis which comes from deadly foxglove.

Marijuana eases macular degeneration and chronic pain and has
suspected cancer-reversing properties, he said.

As for the hallucinogenic properties, Ferguson has other products in
the store that are hallucinogens, but the government doesn't regulate
them the way it does marijuana, he said.

There is a sea of diversity in Ferguson's store, tucked away in
downtown Agassiz.

Ferguson stocks medicinal herbs used by First Nations medicine people,
such as white sage from California and incendiary stones.

Ferguson said he spends about 10 hours a week researching and reading
just to keep up with his field. In addition to training in health
foods, Ferguson holds a doctorate in divinity from the American
Institute of Holistic Theology and is an ordained minister of the
non-denominational Universal Life Church.

He does not practice as a member of the clergy, but says he uses the
moral authority of scripture in using plants to promote health in his
stores.

There is, however, a curious dichotomy going on in the background.
While Ferguson is dispensing advice about using health products, a
steady stream of women come in to use the tanning bed in a back room.

Asked if tanning isn't a strange accessory to a health food store,
Ferguson shrugs and said he installed the tanning bed hedging his bets
when the store first opened. He wasn't sure a health food store in
Agassiz would work.

Until about 3:30 p.m., there is a steady stream of customers, not only
for the tanning booth, but also for the health food products, then it
slows to a regular afternoon lull before picking up again before
closing time at 5:30.

Today there's more than herbs and vitamins and tanning going over the
counter at Black Sea. There's also politics.

For the duration of the campaign, the front counter is also the
campaign office and there's marijuana literature available to the
curious and campaign signs on the front window.