PROMOTERS WANT TO SEE CANNABIS SEED OIL CATCH ON AS HEALTHY SUPPLEMENT

Karen Schaffer remembers crying one night with her husband Simon when
they felt they had to put down their dog, a black Labrador.

The dog had injured itself, pulling several muscles and could barely walk.

"I remember we sat there and cried because she was suffering," she
says, adding they considered having the dog euthanised.

But, before they did, Schaffer made a trip into Edmonton and stumbled
across something interesting in a Whyte Avenue store.

Months later, the Schaffer's dog is alive and well and Karen and
Simon were in Grande Prairie Monday night trying to promote the
product they feel saved their dog and changed their own lives.

Marijuana in a pill.

In that Whyte Avenue store they found the product Med Marijuana/Medi
Paws, a pill form that includes essentially cannabis seed oil. The
product comes in two lines for humans and pets and the store owner
promised Karen her money back if the pills didn't help her dog.

"It was five days later and our dog wasn't limping or anything," says Karen.

Impressed, the Schaffers started popping the pills and believe
they've helped their own arthritis pains and eyesight problems.

While there is no scientific testing to prove the results, across
Canada marijuana distributors and company are fighting stereotypes
and trying to market the health aspects of cannabis oil.

The Halifax-based company Med Marijuana visited Grande Prairie Monday
night with founder Melanie Stephen and the Schaffers, who live
outside Whitecourt in the tiny town of Peers. They were hoping to
break those stereotypes and find a local distributor for the pills,
which are legally sold as a health supplement.

"Our product wouldn't get a flea stoned even if it wandered into a
tractor-trailer of it," says Stephen, who admits she often has to
tell fight the perception that her product is an illegal drug.

The company began in 1998 after the federal government began allowing
farmers to grow marijuana under strict guidelines. Health Canada
inspects the plants to ensure it has a low THC content which is
considered the mind-altering part of the plant that smokers want.

Med Marijuana grows its plants on a farm outside the Niagara area in
Ontario and, since its founding, has branched into a line of pills
for pets and also a massage oil and lotion called Canabliss and a
protein power supplement for athletes that Stephen promises won't
interfere with drug tests.

Since the pills are sold as a health supplement it doesn't have to
scientifically prove its claims, but Stephen believes the cannabis
oil is the healthiest of its kind, containing omega oils the body
needs. Stephen says the pills can help everyone from diabetics to
people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

"We don't have a cure for anything . . . however it is the most
nutritionally balanced oil on the planet. It just doesn't get any
better than this. We are the Heinz ketchup of the marijuana industry,
we have well over 100,000 clients using our products."

One of the people who came out for the seminar admits he wasn't sure
what to expect but supports any attempt to make marijuana more legitimate.

"I think this is awesome. I need a source of omega oils and I don't
like fish-based oils," says Josh Barnett. "It pushes a lot more
positive feedback of the plant."

Schaffer says that's why the couple became involved in the business.

"I just want to get the word out," she says.