B.C. POT GROWERS BLAST $6 MILLION WASTE

Ottawa Ignored Expert Advice, Cannabis Community Says

OTTAWA -- B.C.'s cannabis community endorsed Friday Senator Pat Carney's
complaint in Parliament that the federal government wasted $6 million and
offended British Columbians by not relying on generations of pot-growing
experience on the West Coast.

They said Health Canada deliberately ignored advice and contract bids from
B.C. experts when it selected a Saskatoon fruit tree-growing operation two
years ago to be Canada's first state-sanctioned supplier of pot to be used
for medicinal reasons.

Prairie Plant Systems Inc., operating in an abandoned mine in Flin Flon,
Man., produced an initial crop that turned out to be bad weed, Heath
Minister Anne McLellan revealed this week.

"As the inept Flin Flon experiment proves once again to be flop, the
federal government has no one to blame but themselves," said Michael Hansen
of Delta, founder of the Canadian Hemp Growers Association.

"This $6 million [was] spent to educate the uneducated on how to grow,"said
Hansen, whose association, working with a Surrey grower in what he called a
joint venture, was one of the bidders of the Health Canada contract.

"This industry branches out from B.C. east, north, and south," Hansen said
of B.C.'s status among pot-growing regions.

"We have a world-wide reputation for being the best."

Hilary Black, founder of the Vancouver Compassion Club, said the fault
rests with the government, not the grower.

Black, who distributes pot to about 2,000 members suffering from everything
from HIV to arthritis, said she warned one of former health minister Allan
Rock's top advisers a year ago that the government was facing a fiasco by
relying on seed captured in police busts.

The warning was ignored, resulting in an initial crop being a flop because
it contained numerous varieties of pot.

The mixed-bag crop, which would make it impossible to conduct clinical
trials on pot's purported health benefits, was the result of Ottawa's
inability to acquire a genetically-consistent seed supply from the U.S.
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

B.C. growers were flabbergasted, saying Health Canada could have acquired
good seed from their community using the same special government exemption
that permitted the Flin Flon operation to be launched.

"I offered on numerous occasions to provide Health Canada with any specific
strain they want at no charge, and for that matter I could have grown it at
no charge," said Marc Emery, who is running for mayor of Vancouver under
the Marijuana Party banner.

"I'm familiar with dozens of grow rooms across B.C. I've got 540 different
strains in my catalogue. I'm the largest seed genetic distributor in the
world for marijuana."

Philippe Lucas, a spokesman for the Vancouver Island Compassion Society,
was one of several cannabis experts who portrayed the pot blunder as a
massive waste of tax dollars.

"We get told in the [media] that all you need to grow pot is a closet and a
light and an 18-year-old and you can make a million dollars," Lucas said.

"So I find it amazing that with two years behind them and untold millions
Prairie Plant Systems for some reason can't give us a safe product yet.

"Health Canada has really blown it."

Lucas, who smokes pot to deal with symptoms of hepatitis C, said McLellan
offended Canadians by saying people will just have to wait for Prairie
Plant to produce a better crop.

"I had a woman last week who came in to our organization, who is 25 years
old, she got diagnosed with cancer and this week she goes in for a double
mastectomy," Lucas said.

"For Anne McLellan to say we're all just going to have to be patient for
this product is to me really insulting and inappropriate."

Lucas and several other other advocates of liberal marijuana laws will
testify next Tuesday in Richmond at a hearing by a special Senate committee
studying Canada's drug laws.

Black said the $6-million cannabis boondoggle was a direct result of senior
federal bureaucrats being afraid to consult broadly because they'd be
dealing with law-breakers.

"They can't oppress us and persecute us if they're officially and overtly
using our information and our genetics," said Black, whose compassion club
has distributed marijuana to about 2,000 sick people from its outlet on
Vancouver's east side.

Health Canada spokesman Andrew Swift said the government was aware its
first crop wouldn't be useful for clinical research.

But he said the wide variety of strains produced in the Flin Flon operation
now give the grower an opportunity to narrow down the seed selection to the
strains of highest quality.

He said the government wasn't in a position to accept seeds from B.C. pot
suppliers.

"It has to be from a lawful source."

While scathing in their criticism of the federal government, B.C.'s
cannabis community now sees Carney as a heroine.

Carney, while praising B.C.'s world-class pot Thursday, said she wasn't
speaking from personal experience. Her drug of choice is single malt whisky.

But as a chronic sufferer of arthritis, she said she'd like to keep her
options open.

Scoring a high-quality weed supply on any of the Gulf Islands wouldn't be a
problem, Black said.

"I'm sure she has neighbours who could help her out."