MARIJUANA DISTRIBUTOR DEFENDS NEW SERVICE

Bob Estes hopes to avoid police scrutiny by selling his organic pot
only to people with a Health Canada licence

The owner of a medical marijuana compassionate club launched in
Oceanside this week claims he is providing a much-needed service to
the community.

Bob Estes, a medical marijuana user, opened The Organic Matters
Compassionate Access Centre in Errington on Tuesday.

The Fair Road store sells a variety of organic pot, at $7 per gram,
to licensed medical marijuana users.

It also offers cannabis cookies, chocolate, tincture (a
cannabis-infused alcoholic drink) and cannabis compresses. Cannabis
creams and salves are on the way.

Activites that go on at some cannabis compassion clubs are illegal
but authorities have turned a blind eye to similar clubs in the past.
Some advocates say this happens in part because medical marijuana use
is legal. Oceanside RCMP officials were not available for comment
yesterday but Estes said he has yet to be visited by local police officers.

Estes says the need for access to organic marijuana is there,
especially with the compromised immune systems of sick people. He
buys his pot from a network of organic-growers and said several sales
have been made already. Health Canada grows one type of cannabis for
registered medical marijuana users but its program has been plagued
with problems from the start, including reports of contamination and
low potency.

Estes says he will not sell marijuana to anyone who is not licensed
with Health Canada.

Estes, a married father of two young children, at one time used to
home-deliver from a service run out of his house but says he is less
nervous about his public store.

He says he will continue to operate even if police shut him down.

"(Medical marijuana use) is not something that should be shady. I
feel the community has asked me to be here," said Estes on Friday.
"I'm not trying to hide anything. I don't believe that at this point
in humankind, that I'm going to go to jail for this."

Organic Matters Compassionate Access Centre is open Tuesday to
Saturday from noon until 6 p.m.