POT GROWER QUESTIONS FEDS' MOTIVES

You can hear the frustration in Eric Nash's voice as he stares at the
stack of customer requests sitting on his desk. Despite overwhelming
demand for his organic product, business is disappearing like a puff
of smoke.

"We've got a huge demand for our product, just mind-boggling. Yet
because of federal regulations we're not allowed to sell it to all
these consumers," said the owner of Island Harvest, the world's only
organically certified marijuana operation.

The company is one of 177 designated grow operations licensed by
Health Canada to produce marijuana for medical purposes.

As of June 1, 2007, there were 1,816 patients in Canada authorized to
possess dried bud to relieve the symptoms associated with diseases
such as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, cancer, arthritis,
HIV/AIDS and epilepsy.

Patients can grow it themselves or buy it from the federal
government's facility in Flin Flon, Man., or from a designated grower
like Island Harvest.

Designated growers were initially allowed to supply as many customers
as they could handle, but two years ago Health Canada changed the
regulations so that each grower could only supply the needs of one
patient.

Pot grower Nash alleges it is an attempt by the federal government to
force a monopoly out of the Flin Flon mine run by Prairie Plant
Systems Inc., which currently supplies 356 patients with cannabis.

The changes have been devastating for the small Duncan, B.C., business
Nash operates with his wife, Wendy Little.

"We were running it at a good profit and paying our taxes and now
we're running at a loss," he said.

In an e-mail response to a list of questions, a Health Canada
spokesperson said the one grower-one patient rule has existed since
2001 but she did not address the issue of why the rule exists.

As for the monopoly allegation, the spokesperson stated that patients
have three options for acquiring marijuana, one of which is the Flin
Flon operation.

During the heyday of Nash's operation the couple submitted 50
applications to Health Canada and received approval to supply seven
patients.

Interest in their organic product has escalated exponentially since
that time, but the couple is only allowed one customer each.

"We were running at a good profit with seven patients back then. We
could have 300 customers today," said Nash. "(But) we can only supply
one. It's very frustrating."

Approved patients get a daily pot allowance ranging from one gram to
56 grams. A typical client uses five grams per day, which requires
production from about 25 plants.

Nash and his wife are growing 30 plants for their two customers, which
generates an estimated $300 per month in revenue. They sell their
certified organic pot for $3.50 per gram compared to $5 per gram from
the Flin Flon plant.

The couple has had to direct their clients and potential customers to
compassion clubs, nonprofit organizations across the country that sell
pot to people suffering from a variety of ailments.

Nash said these clubs operate in an unregulated grey area of the law,
where much of their supply comes from the tens of thousands of illegal
grow operations operating across the country. Health Canada has turned
a blind eye to what transpires at these organizations.

"We've put all our patients onto the black market, onto the street,"
he said. Nash can't understand why the federal government would rather
have people inhaling expensive marijuana smoke from plants that may
have been treated with pesticides rather than buying from a certified,
government-inspected organic operation.

The Health Canada spokesperson confirmed that compassion clubs operate
outside the law but said that is a matter for the police.

Many of the clubs market their product as organic. Nash expects the
government will eventually be forced to wade into that grey area of
the law when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency implements its
Organic Products Regulation on Dec. 14, 2008, because they will no
longer be allowed to call it organic marijuana if it is not certified.

Two court cases have been launched challenging Health Canada's program
on constitutional grounds. Nash hopes the agency will revert to the
old regulations.

He is spending a lot of time in the courtroom these days, acting as an
expert witness in those trials and generating off-farm income by
testifying on behalf of sick people charged with illegally growing pot
plants, telling the courts how the marijuana they were found with
could reasonably have been used to treat their illnesses.

"We have to find other ways of making income. This is one way we're
doing that," he said.