Alderville – The owner of a full service marijuana dispensary says his pot business is growing since a story was published in Northumberland Today.
Particularly Im getting a lot of seniors coming in, said owner Tim Tucker. It brought in a lot of people that are already smoking, but they wanted to become legal. Its done a good thing.
Northumberland Today first published the story on Thursday about the South Shore Wellness – Full Service Cannabis Dispensary located at 8987 County Road 45 in Roseneath.
At least 40 per cent of the people coming in asking for documents would be over 55, Tucker said. They were coming in, getting their doctors to sign off so they are now able to be covered legally.
The facility sells an assortment of marijuana in different forms, including cookies.
With the increase in volume, Tucker said if someone gets pulled over, and they have marijuana, they arent getting a big court trip.
Tucker also explained he is negotiating with the Band Council in Alderville about leasing a building to grow marijuana.
There will be a community meeting on Aug. 24 in Alderville to get feedback on the proposed project.
Regulations have come out and they are favourable to us so were going ahead with this community meeting to try to convince the Band to allow us to put a guarded (facility) on the reserve for patients.
If the proposal is accepted by the community, its unknown the amount of plants that would be grown.
Its totally dependent on the number of patients who are interested, Tucker said. One of the new regulations states, every gram that is on a patients permit, it takes so many grams to equal so many plants, so for me to give an accurate number would be impossible because it would depend on the number of patients and how many plants each one was individually allowed to have.
The building he is looking at leasing is 5,000 square feet.
Tucker said there were two ways you can grow marijuana; one as a patient, another as a licensed producer.
There was an injunction on the MMAR when it was banned. The MMAR was a program that allowed patients to grow their own or to designate another grower to grow it for them, Tucker said. We did provide that service to patients growing for those who cannot. So Jim Bob and the Band were a little bit nervous about leasing to us until this clarification on what the new regulations would be.
Tucker explained that Medical Marijuana Access Regulations was the original medical marijuana program in Canada and that was replaced by another which is the set of regulations that basically took away patients rights to grow, Tucker noted.
Then what happened is a group of patients with dispensaries took it to the Supreme Court and it was called the Allard decision and that forced the government to come out with new regulations, which have just come out, that are called the Access to Medical Marijuana Regulations, he said. Those are the freshly minted regulations. Now patients have the right to choose between purchasing from a government licensed, growing it themselves or having someone like us grow it for them.
Tucker stated he and the employees must be licensed.
Myself and every member of my staff are either licensed or patients that are licensed. The Supreme Court decision allows patient to patient transfer of medication. Thats basically the only legal way you can go about it, he said. So my staff each have to have their own prescription so when they pass medication to the public, assuming the public has theirs (prescription) then its a legal transfer.
I couldnt have somebody thats not licensed do it, otherwise its technically trafficking.
Regarding a number of dispensaries in Toronto that were busted several months ago, Tucker said that was mainly due to municipal zoning issues.
My store in Toronto had a dispensary literally in the same hallway that was shut down because they werent above board and they left us alone because we ran by the rules, he said. Theyve never touched us. It still continues on to this day.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Business At Marijuana Dispensary Is Growing, Says Owner
Author: Pete Fisher
Contact: 905-372-0131
Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan
Website: Northumberland Today
