The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
While the street version of the product continues to spark spirited debate, most would accept that medicinal marijuana has a place in Canadian society. If pot is going to alleviate the suffering of chronically ill, in some cases deathbed-bound patients, how can a compassionate people deny them that treatment option? Likewise in Flin Flon and area, it is difficult to find a voice favouring the recent withdrawal from our community of the nation's only legal mass-supplier of this important product. For nearly all of this decade, biotech firm Prairie Plant Systems produced the carefully-cultivated weed in a mega-secure facility located in a vacant segment of HudBay Minerals' Trout Lake Mine. When HudBay announced in May that PPS would be gone as of June 30, it signaled the end of an era. No longer would Flin Flon carry the moniker of "Marijuana Capital of Canada." No longer would we be the target of barbs about memory loss and the munchies. Far more importantly, PPS's surprise departure may have damaged the city's chances of becoming a Canadian frontier in the rapidly growing plant-based pharmaceuticals industry. It may take years to fully appreciate the fall-out. Despite all that has been written about PPS's exit, in this newspaper and in others, it remains difficult to ascertain exactly why things had to end as unfortunately as they did. PPS claims a key sticking point was that HudBay did not think PPS could manage Trout Lake on its own beyond mid-2011, when the mine's viable ore is slated to run out. PPS also said it wanted to expand its Trout Lake operations well beyond marijuana, but in order to do so required the certitude of a long-term lease. HudBay has simply said the situation came to its "logical conclusion" after PPS's lease expired, having already been extended several times to ensure an uninterrupted inventory of marijuana. Of course it was not a "logical conclusion" for PPS, which desperately wished to remain at Trout Lake. Suspect It is reasonable to suspect there was more to this episode than was ever made public. The Globe and Mail characterized the two companies as being in a "row," which would explain a lot. As a contractual matter between two private companies, neither HudBay nor PPS should be compelled to publicize every detail or disagreement in their talks. It's just too bad that whatever happened carries a detrimental impact on the community at a most challenging point in our history. The immediate impact is the loss of 13 full-time local jobs. The longer-term impact is unknowable. PPS head Brent Zettl had claimed up to 200 jobs would be generated over the next five to 10 years if his expansion and long-term access plans came to fruition. Some rightly questioned Mr. Zettl's estimate, suggesting he take off his rose-coloured glasses. Others took him at his word, while a few thought his projection may have been fairly conservative. The truth is, nobody knows whether there were ever 200 jobs on the line. But as researchers increasingly turn to plant life as a piece of the puzzle in treating disease, it is more than conceivable that there would have been an economic boon of some scale, at some point. The silver lining is that there still might be. The Manitoba government's Agri-Health Research Network is conducting a feasibility study to determine which plant-based health projects may be suitable for Trout Lake. Set for completion this fall, the study will help MAHRN determine whether it would like to become a tenant in a mine that has already produced thousands of pounds of medical pot. Based on the findings, the door may also open to private biotech firms. Time will tell whether the study pays dividends. If feasibility of certain projects is proven, there is still no guarantee MAHRN and related firms will be ready, willing and able to set up shop in a remote northern city. So now the former Marijuana Capital of Canada is left to hope. Hope that the keen interest in Trout Lake exhibited by PPS exists elsewhere. Hope that the mine is useful for the sorts of plant-based pharmaceuticals coming down the pipeline. And, above all, hope that the vast economic potential of this industry won't go up in smoke like medicinal marijuana already has. Local Angle runs Fridays.
