PAUL JOSEPH
SOURCES: DELOITTE,
CANACCORD GENUITY
GROUP INC.
JUNE 2017 BCBUSINESS 15
T H E M O N T H LY I N F O R M E R
tmı
"The sprawling nature of the Seattle
metro area is going to make
Vancouver very attractive for a lot of
the innovation folks" –p.21
J U N E 2 0 17
INSIDE
Cyber hygiene ... Globetrotting startup ... Meet the lobbyists ... What's your culture? ... + more
FROM POLITICS TO POT
Former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt
is chairman of True Leaf Medicine,
which has found a surprising new
market for cannabis
W
hen True Leaf
Medicine Inc. applied
for a licence to grow
medical marijuana at its
Okanagan facility,
CEO Darcy
Bomford checked all the boxes.
He compiled a 1,500-page brief
and brought on former pre-
mier Mike Harcourt, a criminal
defence lawyer, as chairman.
Bomford was on the eve of win-
ning municipal approval when
he „led the application—48th in
line nationwide. Health Canada
turned it down. "It was very frus-
trating," he recalls. True Leaf was
sent back to the drawing board
and bumped to 483rd place.
The Vernon-based company
is one of dozens of B.C. busi-
nesses wading through Health
Canada's medical marijuana
permitting process, determined
to secure a licence to produce
mail-order cannabis for patients
enrolled in the federal Access to
Cannabis for Medical Purposes
Regulations (
ACMPR) program.
Like his peers, Bomford has
spent the past 18 months cau-
tiously watching the federal
government set out to ful„ll
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's
promise of marijuana legaliza-
tion, which could come as soon
as July 1, 2018.
This prospect has scores of
medical marijuana businesses
—many stymied by what they
describe as a burdensome road
to approval—weighing their
options. All of Canada's licensed
producers of marijuana, and
Slow Burn
Medical marijuana could be a pot of gold for B.C. growers, but
some hopefuls are finding other ways to cash in as they wait
for approval from the feds
by Jacob Parry
REGULATION
5.6 MILLION
Potential Cana-
dian consumers
of recreational
cannabis
$466 MILLION
Total raised
on the Cana-
dian Securities
Exchange and
the Toronto Stock
Exchange by
medical mari-
juana companies
in 2016
LET THE
GOOD
TIMES ROLL
