BCBusiness

24 BCBusiness nOVEmBER 2018 LEft: dELOittE P remier John horgan once called farnworth "the king of cannabis, the ganja guy," and he's taking the job in stride. his key priorities, he says: shutting down the black market, protecting young people, ensuring product safety and quality (a federal responsibility), and dealing with drug- impaired driving and road safety. On the enforcement side, farn- worth explains, B.C. will have canna- bis inspectors who ensure that licensed retailers obey the law. there will also be a community enforcement unit, based in his minis- try, with the power to seize product from illegal operators and issue fines. as more legal retail outlets open, enforcement will be stepped up, says farnworth, who calls legalization an evolution. "in many ways, it's like any business. it takes time, and you have to ramp up locations." having opted for public and private sales of recreational cannabis, B.C. is letting local governments decide what mix they want, or just say no. Besides convincing Ottawa to let smaller growers become licensed pro- ducers, it capped the number of retail licences per holder at eight to give as many British Columbians as possible a chance to participate and avoid a monopoly, farnworth says. "in many parts of this province, cannabis has been part of the economy for a very long time," notes the solicitor general, who adds that his government is open to allowing farm-gate sales by craft producers. With cannabis edibles likely to become legal next year, farnworth thinks they'll make life easier for people who don't want to deal with pot smoke. On drug-impaired driv- ing, he guarantees there will be a court challenge of the current roadside saliva-screening test approved by the federal govern- ment. "the feds understand that, we understand that, and that's why i say legalization doesn't begin and end on October 17." –N.R. The Geen family has farmed in the Okanagan Valley for more than 120 years, growing tree fruits like apples and cherries, with a foray into ginseng in the 1990s. Now, fourth-generation farmer Marc Geen is cultivating cannabis. After the federal government announced the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) in 2013, allowing commercial cultivation in Canada, Geen launched SpeakEasy Cannabis Club, applied for a licence and converted a 10,000-square- foot ginseng-processing facility to medical marijuana production. The company, based in Rock Creek, east of Oliver, expects to have an additional 50,000 square feet of indoor capacity up and run- ning by next spring. The federal Cannabis Act passed this spring will allow outdoor production in Canada, so SpeakEasy has purchased 290 acres of south Okanagan farmland in Rock Creek from the Geen family. The company hopes to plant 60 acres in the spring and another 60 the following year. To have enough plants ready for spring 2019, the Speak- Easy team would need to start cloning in December.ŽCloning involves taking cuttings from cannabis varieties chosen for particular situations or prod- ucts, growing them indoors over the winter and planting them out in the spring. A huge bene't of growing outdoors is lower production costs, Geen says. "Canopy [Growth Corp.] or Tweed or any of the guys that have large greenhouses, their production costs are a dollar, $1.25 a gram. Our production cost for outdoor is about 10 cents a gram." Geen is also bene'ting from the experience of his father, Merv, former chair of Kelowna-based SunRype Products, founded by a collec- tive of fruit growers. Speak- Easy has formed a cannabis growers collective to handle the corporate side of produc- tion for its members. By Sep- tember, nine had joined. —F.S. T H E s H E R I F F Mike FArnWorth Minister of Public safety and solicitor general T H E F A R m E R MArC geen CeO, speakeasy Cannabis Club LAW-ABIDInG CITIzens Proportion of cannabis products likely to be purchased through legal channels 55% ATLANTIC 63% CANADA 66% WEST 65% ONTARIO 47% QUEBEC Join thE cLUB marc Geen is building a growers collective

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