Health Canada, the Canadian government department tasked with over-seeing and providing for the country's medical marijuana program is seeking a professional cannabis grower, according to an announcement on the official government tenders website. The organisation which wins the lucrative tender will be expected to supply medical grade cannabis which is approved by the government, to certified Canadian users and the contract, which could be worth $10 million+ per year, is to start in the Autumn.
Help Wanted
Health Canada posted a notice on a government tenders website saying it would put out a formal request for proposals in the spring of 2008, but without actually specifying a date.
According to Canadian law, the marijuana program licenses certified medical users to grow their own pot, to have someone grow it for them or to buy it straight from Health Canada who have to date, paid a private organisation, Praire Plant Systems, over $10 million dollars to cultivate government certified dope in a disused mine shaft in Flin Flon Manitoba, from where the company couriers the finished cannabis buds direct to the end user in 30 gram packs. The company was awarded the contract initially back in late 2000.
Since 2006 the government has awarded Praire Plant Systems 6 monthly increases in the deal. A situation which Praire Plant Systems company president Brent Zettl says, was never going to last for ever.
He said "We didn't expect that this process would be able to continue. These are the rules that they have to abide by".
"We had anticipated internally that something would have to happen. We expected it would be something along these lines."
He continued, saying the company has yet to decide whether it will bid on the new contract, although he "expects it will."
With over $10 million at stake I'll say it will.
United Kingdom
Closer to home and the UK governments intentions to further criminalise cannabis and its users, supposedly on the grounds of "public health" is shown up for exactly what it is in light of this announcement.
A unilateral policy which is driven by an agenda absolutely nothing to do with health, and more to do with political shenanigans put in place to protect the alcohol, the pharmaceutical and the oil industries respectively, who between them spend millions of pounds per year, lobbying government.
Europe
A number of our European neighbours have already made allowances for citizens who choose to use cannabis over regular intoxicants such as alcohol. These include Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Germany, who announced back in 07 that their first legally certified medical cannabis patient, a female suffering with MS, had been granted a permit to buy medical marijuana from the government.
Yet in the summer of 2007 when new boy Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister, one of his first announcements was to call into question the status of cannabis in the UK (Class C), and to ask the ACMD for their advice on whether cannabis should be reclassified back to a class B drug.
Since the ACMD public meeting convened in London on February 5th 08 the advice has been printed in every single newspaper in the land. According to the ACMD there is "no new evidence which proves cannabis is any more dangerous now, than it was back in 2004." The year it was declassified.
Yet the governments bloody minded quest to criminalise upwards of 4 million of its citizens continues apace as the Prime Minister seeks to pass what he calls "the right message".
But its a message which a great many voters disagree with and in a period which see's David Cameron's Conservative party pulling further ahead in the polls, the Labour party must do everything in its power to bring those voters who have changed their allegiances, back on side, and if Gordon Brown isn't seen by party HQ as the man who can regain the countries flagging confidence, perhaps its time they chose someone who can?
Or they can leave it until the next general election, when the voter's will do it for them.
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Contributor's Note
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