RDKB SUPPORTS MEDICINAL MARIJUANA PILOT PROJECT IN PRINCIPLE

The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) has agreed to
support in principle a project involving marijuana.

At an RDKB board meeting last Thursday, Grand Forks Compassionate
Society (GFCS) Executive Director Jim Leslie made a presentation on
medicinal marijuana and the directors voted in favour of sending a
letter supporting the pilot project in principle.

Currently, access to medicinal marijuana is granted by Health Canada
but recently Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq made recommendations to
improve the Marijuana Medical Access Program in order to curb abuse
and exploitation by criminals.

Joy Davies, city councillor and chair of the GFCS, said there are
problems with the current system.

"The major problem is patients that are under their doctors' care
cannot access safe, local, legal, dignified cannabis and with the
system as it is, patients can't grow their cannabis until they are
approved by Health Canada, which could take up to six months," Davies
said.

GFCS would like to see control of medicinal marijuana change hands
from the federal to provincial government, something Leslie said is
the direction Health Canada is going in with its recommended changes.

"Basically, we are looking to advance a decentralized medical
marijuana access program from the federal government to the province
of B.C., or the provinces generally," explained Leslie.

"That's actually a direction Health Canada is going in according to
proposed changes to the regulations they've released. There's nothing
laid out specifically by Health Canada at this time but we're
concerned about centralized production and there're some negative
impacts to local communities economically and also to the patients for
access and quality of product."

Leslie said that there are jobs that could be created in local
economies with regulated, licensed, regional production systems and
doesn't want to see small towns take any more economic hits.

He said that with a resource-based economy it's been tough and the
pilot project could be something that is used in communities to
produce medicine that helps a number of Canadians.

There could be some backlash but members of the board are aware that
the topic is a controversial one.

"It's a fact that (marijuana) is being used (as legal medicine in
Canada), we can't deny it; doctors are issuing prescriptions for
patients to have access to it," explained Midway Director and Board
Chair Marguerite Rotvold, adding she gained better insight into
medicinal marijuana thanks to Leslie.

"The presentation gave me a clearer vision of medicinal marijuana
because it's so broad - creams, tinctures, all the different processes
you can go through, not just smoking. It's less smoking probably than
it is all these other processes, so I was willing to support it in
principle."

Montrose Director Griff Welsh said that while it was hard to determine
the definition of what is legal and what is illegal, when it comes to
growing marijuana, he did seem impressed with the presentation.

"Your proposal sounds legitimate and honest and forthright and seems
to be the way to do it," he said at the meeting.

Leslie said support in principle from the RDKB is big.

"It's a huge step forward," Leslie said. "I think what that shows is
local government realizes that the (current medical marijuana access)
program isn't working very well right now and it hasn't for quite a
while - it's been very hard to work through and this is a way to
streamline it."