FLIN FLON TO GROW NATION'S 1ST LEGAL POT CROP

FLIN FLON will be the first place in Canada to legally grow marijuana, with
the first crop to be harvested and rolled by this time next year.

"I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be the main man providing Canada
with marijuana," said Brent Zettl, president and CEO of Prairie Plant
Systems, who will grow the pot deep underground, in a mine shaft.

Yesterday, Zettl's company was awarded a $5.8-million federal contract to
grow medicinal marijuana for five years. They are charged with delivering
marijuana, both in bulk and cigarettes, to Health Canada, so it can test
the medicinal value of the drug.

"We're going to grow some pot," Flin Flon mayor Dennis Ballard said. "It's
another industry, which is what we're looking for."

While Zettl can see the humour in being the first government-sanctioned
marijuana dealer in the country, he also believes in the benefits the drug
can deliver to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, AIDS and cancer.

Many people in chronic pain or with debilitating diseases say marijuana
increases their appetite and reduces nausea, but all the evidence so far is
anecdotal.

The 145 Canadians with exemptions to smoke marijuana will be supplied the
Flin Flon crop by Health Canada if they agree to provide information for
the clinical trials. In a space the length and width of three football
fields 180 metres under the ground, Zettl will grow the plants in a
shutdown area of the Trout Lake mine, creating about 10 jobs.

While Prairie Plant Systems is based in Saskatoon, it has a decade-long
relationship with Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, growing a variety of
plants underground while copper and zinc is mined next door.

"It's a marriage made in heaven, in the bowels of the Earth," said Wayne
Fraser, HBMS's director of environment. "A lot of plants do extremely well
down there."

Fraser thinks the underground location, about three kilometres from
downtown Flin Flon, was a key factor in their win over the 195 bids
tendered on the project.

"The operation would be quite attractive to some people to load in the back
of their truck and take back to town," he joked. The RCMP sat on the
committee evaluating the bids, although local Sgt. Bob Bazylewski hadn't
been notified yesterday of the new agricultural addition to his community.

"You're under hundreds of metres of solid rock, built under a lake. You
couldn't get a more secure area," Zettl said of the mine site, with its
single way in.

To get to this stage, Zettl's company and anyone who would be working on
the project had to undergo security clearances.

"You would not believe the due diligence we've been through," he said of
the 13-month process.

Prairie Plant Systems will be required to produce 185 kilograms of
marijuana the first year and 420 kilograms a year in the remaining four
years of the contract.

The company will have to test the marijuana all through the growing process
to ensure consistent quality of the product. All growing, testing and
packaging will be done in the underground site.

Construction on the 6,460-square-foot lab and growing area will take about
six months, and Zettl expects the first crop will be delivered before the
end of next year.

Leaf Rapids, northeast of Flin Flon, had contemplated a similar project in
its closed mine, but wasn't able to attract a scientific partner. They are
looking at growing fruits and vegetables hydroponically with a Winnipeg
company, Mayor Barbara Bloodworth said.

While buried under the earth, Zettl will grow the marijuana in soil using
metal-halide and high-pressure sodium lights.

"I don't believe in hydroponics, because it works great for the first
couple of months and then it goes downhill really fast," Zettl said of the
method many illegal growers of marijuana prefer. "The problem is algae
buildup and bacteria buildup. Besides, if plants were meant to be in water,
they'd be in water."

Zettl's company has long had an interest in growing plants for medicinal
purposes, including the Pacific yew trees they grew in Flin Flon that
contain the active ingredient in Taxol, a drug that treats ovarian and
breast cancer.

He's also experimented with growing genetically altered plants that have
medicinal value, such as a proposal for rice with a polio vaccine in it.