THE MARIJUANA THAT WENT TO POT

In September 2000 we told you about Loren Wiberg, a businessman from
Innisfail, Alta., who was seeking the Health Canada contract to grow legal
marijuana for medical purposes.

Mr. Wiberg's idea was to grow the weed hydroponically in the Diefenbunker
near Red Deer, one of the abandoned underground nuclear-safe structures
built during the worst days of the Cold War.

The government wanted to demolish the Diefenbunker, but Mr. Wiberg's
research showed that it was in good shape.

Fixing it up with the necessary heat, electricity and security arrangements
to grow herb would be a snap.

Alas, Mr. Wiberg (pictured outside the bunker) lost the contract and the
Diefenbunker was demolished at considerable expense.

The contract instead went to Prairie Plant Systems Inc. of Saskatoon, which
agreed to provide standardized marijuana under the terms of the contract.
The announced cost was $5.7 million.

Mystifyingly, this figure was considerably higher than Mr. Wiberg's
$5.27-million bid; what is more, he could have spared Public Works and
Government Services Canada the trouble of filling in the Diefenbunker.
Still, he did not take it too hard. But on May 9, Health Minister Anne
McLellan told the Commons health committee that PPS's first crop is
basically useless.

The seeds were taken from police-seized plants and the harvest contains 185
different varieties of cannabis, all with varying amounts of the active
ingredient, THC. World newspapers guffawed at the government that couldn't
even grow marijuana as well as your neighbour's stoned nephew.

But PPS president Brent Zettl defends his company's effort. The problem, he
says, is not that the pot is no good--rather, it is too good.

The contract called for marijuana with a THC content between 5% and 6%, but
Dr. Zettl, untroubled by a scrap of paper, says his weed's 9.5%-11% strength
is more appropriate for clinical research material.

Not to mention bongs! Your correspondent, who interviewed Mr. Wiberg in
2000, remembered that the Wiberg bid had proposed to tailor the marijuana to
within extremely fine THC tolerances.

Mr. Wiberg confirms the recollection as does the text of our story, in which
he was quoted as saying, "We intend to separate the flowers, the pollen, the
resin--all the elements of the plant.

We can recombine those to give the government whatever level of THC they
want."

"It's a very difficult process", he now says, "but we believe we could have
nailed the THC content to within one part in a thousand."

Mr. Wiberg made it clear in his proposal that he was prepared to demonstrate
this ability to government scientists.

Since his bid was lower and could have saved the cost of trashing the
Diefenbunker, why wasn't he given the chance?

There must be a good reason. After all, the federal minister responsible for
public works who selected the winning bid was national treasure and icon of
probity Alfonso Gagliano, now our Ambassador to Denmark.