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Ottawa Puts High Price Tag On It’s Pot
By Hempology | April 16, 2007
Globe&Mail
OTTAWA — The federal government charges patients 15 times more for certified medical marijuana than it pays to buy the weed in bulk from its official supplier, newly released documents show. Critics say it’s unconscionable to charge that high a markup to some of the country’s sickest citizens, who have little income and are often cut off from their medical marijuana supply when they can’t pay their government dope bills.
Records obtained under the Access to Information Act show that Health Canada pays $328.75 for each kilogram of bulk medical marijuana produced by Prairie Plant Systems Inc.
The company currently has a $10.3-million contract with Health Canada, which expires at the end of September, to grow standardized medical marijuana in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man.
Health Canada, in turn, sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for $150, plus GST, for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient.
That works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500 per cent.
“It’s impossible for a person on disability,” said Ron Lawrence, 38, a burn victim in Windsor, Ont., who needs medical marijuana to control severe pain. “The sickest people are the ones that need it the most . . . they’re the ones who don’t work.”
Adds Scott McCluskey, 48, in Westbank, B.C., who suffers spinal-cord pain that is eased by marijuana: “They’re selling it for criminal street prices. . . . I don’t think anybody, especially seriously ill people . . . should have to pay this type of money for medicine.”
Currently, 1,742 patients are authorized by Health Canada to possess dried marijuana as a medication. Of these, 1,040 are licensed to grow their own, and another 167 people are licensed to grow marijuana for the exclusive use of licensed patients.
But patients can also order marijuana through Health Canada’s official supplier, Prairie Plant Systems, which typically delivers the product by courier.
“At a time when medical cannabis users all too often have to choose between buying groceries and their medicine, it is unconscionable that Health Canada . . . should be marking up this product 1,500 per cent,” said Philippe Lucas of Victoria-based Canadians for Safe Access, which promotes ready access to medical marijuana.
A spokesman for the department, Jason Bouzanis, said the quoted price of $328.75 a kilogram for bulk marijuana does not include other Health Canada costs.
“The price for individuals authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes is based on the actual cost of production and an estimate of costs associated with the distribution of the product,” he said. “These costs are subject to change.”
Street prices for marijuana are about $10 a gram for small quantities – — or about twice Health Canada’s price — though bulk street purchases with few middlemen can match or better the government price. Compassion clubs charge as low as $5 a gram, the same price as government dope.
Because medical marijuana is not a recognized drug, with its own drug identification number, insurance companies and government drug programs do not reimburse patients for costs, as they do for other pain medication.
Many patients say they are unhappy with the quality of the Prairie Plant System product.
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