ZNAIMER, MIMRAN TALENTS GO TO POT

WINNIPEG, TORONTO -- When television mogul Moses Znaimer gave up his seat
in the executive offices of CHUM Ltd. last year, he issued a cryptic
statement saying his future might involve "trying my hand at something
completely different."

His latest venture fits the description. Mr. Znaimer and retailer Joseph
Mimran have co-founded a research company to invent medicines made with
marijuana.

Both men have already made careers packaging the latest trends into
consumer products: Mr. Znaimer founded North America's first urban
television station and Mr. Mimran started the fashion labels Alfred Sung
and Club Monaco.

Now their talents are going to pot. They incorporated a company called
Cannasat Pharmaceuticals Inc. last January, with backing from Hill &
Gertner Capital Corp. "Really, we'd been at it six to 12 months before
that," Cannasat vice-president Andrew Williams said.

The company's website contains only one sentence so far: "Cannasat
Pharmaceuticals is a company that aims to develop, produce and market a
variety of prescription medicines derived from the plant Cannabis sativa."

Mr. Williams declined to describe the size of the effort, or who is
conducting the research. But he said the venture is looking for new ways to
process the leafy, intoxicating plant into pharmaceuticals, or new methods
of taking the drug.

"We're an R and D company working in cannabinoid-based medicines," Mr.
Williams said. "There's a whole new receptor system that's been discovered
in the body over the last 10 years and there's drugs companies looking to
develop drugs based on that."

One promising idea involves vaporizing marijuana instead of smoking it, Mr.
Williams said, because people who use marijuana legally to relieve medical
symptoms might appreciate the option of inhaling a mist with fewer toxins
than smoke.

"If people are going to choose to smoke marijuana for symptom relief,
that's their choice," he said. "But there's a whole group of people out
there who would prefer not to have to smoke it."

Results aren't expected soon, Mr. Williams added. Large-scale clinical
trials will be necessary before Health Canada approves such products.

"It's a long-term play for us. Like a traditional drug company, it's going
to be five or 10 years of science work."

This summer, Cannasat purchased a non-controlling minority stake in
Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc.

The privately owned biotech company has an exclusive $5.5-million contract
with Health Canada to grow marijuana in an unused mineshaft at Flin Flon,
Man. The federal department is distributing the pot to thousands of medical
patients, to alleviate symptoms of illness.

Brent Zettl, president of Prairie Plant, confirmed in an interview
yesterday that Cannasat bought a small stake in his 15-year-old company and
had been granted a seat on the board of directors.

"Moses sees the vision and the upside," Mr. Zettl said. "We've had profit
in four consecutive years and are growing at about 25 per cent a year. We
hope to go public in a year or three."

Alan Young, an Osgoode Hall law professor and well-known lawyer for medical
marijuana cases, said he is consulting for Cannasat and the company hopes
to issue a formal announcement shortly.

Mr. Zettl estimated that the market for plant-made pharmaceuticals will be
worth $20-billion within 12 years. "There's a lot of players," he said,
"but no one has yet hit the home run."

Meanwhile, a study known as COMPASS (Cannabis for the management of pain
assessment of safety study) plans to track 1,400 chronic pain patients, 350
of whom use cannabis provided by Prairie Plant Systems, as part of their
pain management strategy, for a one-year period.