MARKUP ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA 1,500%

High Cost A Hardship For Users Left Unemployed By Illness, Patients
Say

OTTAWA - The federal government charges patients 15 times more for
certified medical marijuana than it pays to buy the weed in bulk from
its official supplier, newly released documents show.

Critics say it's unconscionable to charge that high a markup to some
of the country's sickest citizens, who have little income and are
often cut off from their medical marijuana supply when they can't pay
their government bills.

Records obtained under the Access to Information Act show that Health
Canada pays $328.75 for each kilogram of bulk medical marijuana
produced by Prairie Plant Systems Inc.

The company currently has a $10.3-million contract with Health Canada,
which expires at the end of September, to grow standardized medical
marijuana in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man. Health Canada,
in turn, sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for
$150 plus GST for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a
strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient. That
works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500
per cent.

"It's impossible for a person on disability," said Ron Lawrence, 38, a
burn victim in Windsor, Ont., who needs medical marijuana to control
severe pain. "The sickest people are the ones that need it the most
. they're the ones who don't work."

Adds Scott McCluskey, 48, in Westbank, B.C., who suffers spinal-cord
pain that is eased by marijuana: "They're selling it for criminal
street prices. .. I don't think anybody, especially seriously ill
people ... should have to pay this type of money for medicine."

Health Canada has become a reluctant marijuana supplier, forced into
the role by a series of court decisions that have accepted scientific
research indicating that cannabis can relieve pain when other
medications fail. The courts have also said patients should not be
forced into the black market to purchase their medicine.

Currently, 1,742 patients are authorized by Health Canada to possess
dried marijuana as a medication. Of these, 1,040 are licensed to grow
their own, and another 167 people are licensed to grow marijuana for
the exclusive use of licensed patients.

But patients can also order marijuana through Health Canada's official
supplier, Prairie Plant Systems, which typically delivers the product
by Purolator courier.

Currently, 149 patients are officially in arrears -- almost a third of
the 514 patients who order government-certified dope -- collectively
owing Health Canada $143,611. Many have been cut off from their
supplies, though Health Canada wasn't able to indicate the number.

A spokesman for the department, Jason Bouzanis, said the quoted price
of $328.75 a kilogram for bulk marijuana does not include other Health
Canada costs "associated with the distribution of the product."

Contract records show Health Canada also pays the supplier a packaging
fee of $9.06 for each 30-gram package, to cover labour and materials,
as well as courier fees that are dependent on shipping volumes.

Although patients currently can grow it themselves or have someone
else grow it for them, Health Canada plans to phase out these
production licences sometime after this year.