Clinical Cannabis
How current marijuana clinics are focusing on education for the public
By Will Cowan
Typical work day in the offices of 420 Clinic helping connecting patients with local producers PHOTO BY Whitney Cullingham
Cannabis is actually for sale in hundreds of storefronts across the country. However, to access it, Canadians have to have a medical reason to be sold marijuana. You might have heard of “medical cards” if you have had an interest in the cannabis industry, which grants you the right to purchase and possess marijuana for your ailments.
“We connect patients to a doctor and then we connect patients to a licensed producer, we never handle any product ourselves,” said Amber Craig, vice president of marketing at 420 Clinic Ltd. in Calgary.
420 Clinic Ltd. acts as a resource centre for patients interested in using medical marijuana. 420 Clinic itself never actually handles the products, since only licensed producers, such as companies like GrenEx and Aurora in Edmonton, Alta., can actually sell and deliver the cannabis to legal patients.
420 Clinic
"... we're always going to have an educator in our location that can advise someone looking to purchase for medical purposes..."
- Amber Craig, VP of Marketing
420 Clinic acts currently as a prescription provider and information centre, aimed at helping those looking for medicinal cannabis. However, with legalization on the doorstep of Canada, 420 Clinic is starting a plan to branch out into a retail space for cannabis.
“We don't know specifically what that's going look like for the clinic,” said Craig, “but we do have plans to go into the retail space.” The application process to become a licensed retailer of recreational cannabis opened on March 6, 2018, but 420 Clinic is adamant on also remaining a resource centre for medical patients and those who are interested in cannabis.
“The demand is certainly going to be primarily in the recreational side of things,” said Craig, “[But] we’re always going to have an educator in our locations that can advise if someone is looking to purchase for medical purposes, they'll be able to educate those people regardless of if it's in a clinic setting or not.”
The reason for having an educator on site for 420 Clinic is important because cannabis is not all made the same. While the plant of cannabis has been researched well enough to know the effects of its THC content, the extracts from the plant into other formats, specifically edibles, has been harder to regulate.
Along with consultation, 420 Clinic also holds a variety of products marketed towards cannabis users. PHOTOS BY Whitney Cullingham
“Oils are already available now in the medical channels, so that’s not going to change. They’re still going to allow the purchase of oils through the recreational market, what's being delayed is the sale and purchase of edibles,” said Craig, “edibles are very hard to regulate. Anywhere that is selling it right now [illegally], there's no guarantee of what the percentage of THC in a product is for example, that's not very easy to maintain a consistent level of. So they need to make sure that for packaging purposes and safety purposes that they know how to track and regulate that product.”
To the 420 Clinic's vice-president, the benefits of cannabis legalization are clear. “Every state in the US that has legalized cannabis has seen huge tax benefits from that,” said Craig. “We’re the first country to do this on a federal level so obviously there's going to be in the billions for money and it's being pushed into the economy.”