Despite some major steps towards the legalization of marijuana, the all-natural drug continues to be misunderstood, according to a group of New Westminster entrepreneurs.
When the group was looking for a location to build a state-of-the-art medical marijuana production facility, they were faced with a number of obstacles.
Enter the municipality of Maple Ridge.
Councillors in the relatively small Fraser Valley city were apprehensive when first approached by Agrima Botanicals chief operations officer James Poelzer. Soon, however, Poelzer and the city came to an agreement, which led to the construction of Agrima Botanicals’ medical marijuana production facility on agricultural land in rural Maple Ridge.
Agrima Botanicals got its start under Health Canada’s soon to expire Marijuana Medical Access Regulations about a year and a half ago. Since then, the group of New Westminster natives has been churning out high quality herb for patients across the country. The company prides itself on offering a variety of strains that address different ailments, not only pain, according to Poelzer.
On April 1, 2014, changes to Health Canada’s regulations will take effect, moving the production of marijuana out of backyards and into larger, commercial operations. While this change comes with its share of pros and cons, Poelzer is excited about what it means for Agrima Botanicals.
“The research is definitely a very exciting opportunity for us,” he said. “We have some guys who do our growing and science side of it and they’re very excited about operating under these new regulations.”
Agrima Botanicals will be working with faculty and students from Simon Fraser University to study marijuana – there are so many things that remain unknown because of its stigma in society, Poelzer said.
“The ability for doctors, researchers to get grants is so much easier because it’s now regulated,” he said. “Now it’s legitimized, … and the opportunities to do more research and find out just how much it can actually help is amazing.”
Marijuana is used for medical purposes like pain and nausea relief. These benefits are thanks to the chemical compounds found within Cannabis. These compounds are called cannabinoids – most known being tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).
“But there have been shown to be about a hundred different ones in cannabis. So you can imagine, we’re only really looking at two and there’s over a hundred so there are definitely some interesting potential therapeutic benefits,” Poelzer said. “We’ve really only scratched the surface on the medicinal benefits of marijuana.”
With new regulations on the horizon, Agrima was required to apply for the new Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations licence in order to continue production. Under these new regulations, Health Canada has declared all personal growers’ licences void come April 1, giving companies like Agrima an opportunity to make a place for themselves in the fledgling industry – but it won’t come cheap.
Health Canada’s new regulations require production facilities to have sophisticated security systems as well as an inventory system to catalogue and track the plants produced and sold. Because this is a brand new industry, there were very few companies providing these types of services.
“That inventory management system is a huge opportunity for companies to start coming out with new software. Even the direct digital control software that we had designed to control all the mechanics in the facility – we had to get it designed custom,” Poelzer said. “Companies can make products like that and sell them en masse to other companies like us.”
As Agrima awaits its new licence, the team is anxious to start producing again. Right now the facility, which held about 700 plants, is undergoing renovations. An addition is being built that will act as a storage facility with a bank-style vault to store prepared product – as required by Health Canada’s new regulations – and a research lab for Agrima Botanicals’ continued partnership with Simon Fraser University.
If all goes according to plan, on April 1 Agrima Botanicals will be among a handful of companies that make up Canada’s medical marijuana industry.
