MARIJUANA GROWERS SEEK TO DIVERSIFY

FLIN FLON, Man. (CP) -- The Saskatoon company chosen to grow medicinal
marijuana for the federal government in an underground northern Manitoba
mine shaft is exploring what other crops it could produce in case the pot
goes bust.

The future of the medicinal marijuana program has been in doubt since
spring when Anne McLellan took over the federal health portfolio and
suggested the pot being grown in Flin Flon is impure. She said she would
not release any of it to sick or dying patients until it has been tested in
clinical trials.

That got Prairie Plant Systems thinking, said Phil Robinson, president of
the Flin Flon and Area Chamber of Commerce.

The company is now looking into growing genetically modified crops and
pharmaceuticals that need to be kept isolated from regular crops, Robinson
said Sunday.

"It makes sense," he said. "We see this as the tip of the iceberg to see
the mine be developed even further. We see it as a much larger operation."

Robinson said if test plants were grown hundreds of metres underground,
there would be no danger of having them mix with regular crops out in the
field.

"If they could put a new drug for people in bananas, it might be a boon.
But you have to make sure it's safe first, and, if you grow it down there,
you could make sure.

"You have to control it. You can't let it get away."

Jim Bole, director of the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg, said there
could be benefits to growing some experimental crops underground.

"Certainly if there was an extremely valuable compound they were worried
about escaping, it could have potential," Bole said.

Prairie Plant Systems was awarded a $5.7-million, four-year contract in
2000 to grow 400 kilograms of marijuana annually.