Toby Harnden visits the world's first government-run cannabis farm, deep in the wilds of Canada
19/01/2002
IN Britain, the argument for and
against cannabis legalisation continues to rage inconclusively, libertarians
pitched against traditionalists. In Canada, however, the debate is being
taken one dramatic step further.
Precise details of the project are
guarded as though Canada's very existence depended on it. Video cameras,
reinforced steel doors and computerised passwords protect the site, hidden
deep in the bedrock beneath Trout Lake, on the outskirts of a remote mining
settlement in frozen Manitoba. The identities of the workers involved are
kept secret to protect their safety.
Named after the adventurer Josiah
Flintabbatey Flonatin, from J E Preston Muddock's obscure 1905 book The
Sunless City, Flin Flon is often cited as the only town in the world that
takes its name from a science fiction character. But this is not an episode
of the X Files or a Tom Clancey sub-plot.
Surreal as it may be, the remote,
rough-hewn location and elaborate security provide the setting for the
world's first government-run cannabis-growing operation - the laboratory
where the raw material for up to a million state-issued reefers is being
produced, above board but underground.
For the time being, its clients are
those Canadian citizens whose physical suffering is so great that no other
relief from pain is available. But Flin Flon is fast becoming the inspiration
for marijuana proselytisers everywhere, the vanguard of the drive towards
making the drug legal and available for all.
The first Canadian harvest is due
this month, and the product, close to a ton of which should be grown over
the next five years, sent out to sufferers of diseases from epilepsy to
Aids and cancer to multiple sclerosis. Clinical trials will be held to
assess its potency and effectiveness.
Medicinal marijuana - or "marihuana"
(the h is for health), as the Ottawa government prefers to spell it - was
made legal in August after an Ontario court ruled that the national ban
was unconstitutional.
If the state was going to have to
permit its patients to use it, Allan Rock, the Canadian Health Minister,
reasoned, then the state had better start providing it, too.
The £2.5m contract was put
out to tender and Prairie Plant Systems, based some 500 miles away in Saskatoon,
picked out of 130 bids. The company had a track record of sustaining vegetation
in disused parts of the Flin Flon mine which were leased by the Hudson
Bay Smelting Company.
Brent Zettl, 39, Prairie Plant's
founder and chief executive, first experimented with phytotrons, or artificial-growth
chambers, more than a decade ago.
In the 1970s, mine workers in Ontario
had noticed that their discarded orange pips and apple seeds had sprouted
quickly and grown several inches high before withering due to lack of light.
Zettl started in Flin Flon with hibiscuses,
Madagascar periwinkle and sweet basil. His most important product became
roses, which he found grew five times more quickly underground than they
did in the open air.
Miners took the flowers home and,
he says, a small population explosion took place in Flin Flon as a result.
Having smelled his roses, drug companies woke up to the other possibilities
available.
Soon, Prairie Plant was growing wild
yew trees, the bark of which contains paclitaxel, the active ingredient
in taxol, used for treating breast and ovarian cancer. When the Canadian
government asked for bids for its new cannabis project, Zettl knew he was
in pole position.
The security of the site was a key
factor in Zettl's victory. "People were worried about growing it on the
bald open prairie, but underground in northern Manitoba is a different
matter," says Wayne Fraser, of the Hudson Bay company.
For Flin Flon, whose population had
shrunk to 7,000 from 12,000 over the previous decade, cannabis was a golden
opportunity to diversify. "You live on the bubble when you're a one-industry
town and it's mining," says Dennis Ballard, Flin Flon's mayor, a cheery
former headmaster who revels in his town's 15 minutes of fame.
"All it takes is for the metal prices
to plunge and it goes scary again. So you're always looking to diversify
the economy and in this situation, there's real potential. They could extend
the operation here tenfold. It could be the start of a huge industry."
South Africa, Brazil and Ireland
have all made inquiries. "Maybe Canada should become the supplier to the
rest of the world," he says. Besides, "The Sunless City", which was found
by the area's first prospectors in 1914, is a "bloody awful book", he says,
so it would be better if Flin Flon were known for something else.
Below ground lies what may well be
Flin Flon's future when the last of the copper and zinc is chipped away.
The distinctive leaves of 3,000 cannabis plants hang languidly from stalks
well over 6ft high.
It is a botanical Cote d'Azur, albeit
one produced by 150 1,000-watt sodium and halide sun-lamps dangling overhead.
The cavern's concrete walls are painted
white and there are porous tiles on the floor to allow drainage. The first
impression is one of brightness and space as the eye takes in the 230-cubic-yard
growth chamber.
At least, that's what Mark Hetherington,
Zettl's right-hand man and Prairie Plant's cannabis "quality control" officer,
assures us. A trip down the mine is absolutely forbidden. Much to his chagrin,
even Mayor Ballard has not been allowed down. "It's better protected than
Fort Knox," he says. "I imagine the reason is politics. I don't know how
the hell all of this wild, crazy dope is going to escape into the outside
world."
Zettl says the paranoia about security
is justified because he and his staff have already received death threats
from irate drug dealers who believe the Canadian government will put them
out of business.
Concerned about the ethical and public
relations problems of using cannabis seeds from illegal producers, the
Ottawa government has opted to supply Prairie Plant with seeds seized by
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"The good news is they got us some
seed," says Hetherington. "The bad news is we don't know anything about
its history."
Another gripe is that the hurdles
that must be overcome to become registered as a medicinal cannabis user
could lead to some deserving cases dying before they get there. Two doctors
have to certify that every other form of pain relief has been tried without
success.
But the Canadian Medical Association
has declined to back medicinal marijuana, stating that clinical trials
are needed first. In the meantime, some Mounties are by and large ignoring
the "compassion clubs" that have sprung up around the country to dispense
cannabis for medical use to those they judge as deserving cases.
Like most Canadians, Mayor Ballard
- whose wife suffers from fibromyalgia which causes constant muscle pain
- argues that the Canadian government should go full steam ahead.
"I'm all for it," he says. "If you've
ever had a loved one with a terminal illness or chronic pain, then you
really don't have an option. If it's going to do anything to help people,
get on with it."
Mine workers have entered into the
spirit by producing business cards with the Hudson Bay logo beside an image
of a cannabis plant. Some wags have suggested Canadian flags with the illicit
weed instead of the maple leaf.
At the Zig Zag Zone store on Flin
Flon's Main Street, Chris Pilz has become the first entrepreneur to cash
in on cannabis. Sales of T-shirts depicting cartoon miners singing `Hi
Ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we grow" have been extraordinary and thanks
to the internet, there is demand from around the world. "It's sending us
to the Bahamas this winter," Pilz says.
The case against cannabis is articulated
by Ron Dobson, 47, the intense, engaging editor of the Flin Flon Reminder
newspaper. He accuses Pilz of glamourising the drug.
"I used to smoke a lot of pot, but
in 1984, I left it behind," he says. "I was in that culture in the 1970s
and I saw what damage it could do. I am dismayed how much light people
are making of it. Smoking pot took away my initiative, my desire to improve
myself. You just sat around and enjoyed the day."
The biggest fear of people like Dobson
is the suspicion that this is a stalking horse for the full legalisation
of cannabis. Allan Rock, the Canadian minister, used his visit to the mine
in the summer to call for "a discussion in Canada about all of this".
Dobson shrugs. "When I used to smoke
pot, I wondered if ever there would be a time when there would be a breakthrough
and people would accept it. And this is it.
"Canada is a progressive country
and sometimes in these issues, we progress a bit far. It's very liberal.
On the one hand, I like that but, on the other, it can get you into trouble."
With the Mounties turning a blind
eye to cannabis being handed out by compassionate clubs, and the courts
reluctant to prosecute recreational users, it seems only a matter of time
before the law is changed. Flin Flon's biggest tourist attraction is currently
a grotesque, 24ft wooden statue of a cartoon version of the Flonatin character.
But perhaps one day the town will raise a monument to its cannabis leaves
and how they helped change the world's attitudes towards drugs.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group
Limited 2001
Toby Harnden