INSIDE A CANNABIS factory in rural Canada, workers scrub in before entering the workplace.
Hair nets, shoe covers, gowns and plastic gloves are just some of the measures in place to prevent contaminants getting anywhere near the production line.
Coast Mountain Cannabis (CMC) in Pemberton, British Columbia is cleaned to hospital standards and is a top employer for locals in this part of western Canada. Its six indoor grow rooms produce one million grams of award-winning, organic cannabis per year.
The company plans to start bringing visiting English and Irish people on tours, to dispel the image that some tourists may still have in their head when they hear the word “weed.”
“These are the walls you’d have in an operating theatre,” says CMC’s co-founder Andrew Ellott. “It is a highly sanitised environment.”
Any thoughts of dodgy dealings in laneways are immediately dispelled by the English businessman.
Canada was one of the first countries in the world to legalise – and strictly regulate – cannabis in 2018. Now, a consumer can walk into a store in Canada and chat about their needs and preferences with the clerk behind the counter. They discuss the kind of high they would like to get. Those suffering with pain or anxiety can purchase a low strength vape pen to use throughout the day.
Doctors can fill prescriptions for medical marijuana for certain patients. These prescriptions are then fulfilled by companies like CMC.
It’s a world away from fears of criminal repercussions and pleas to be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes in Ireland, where only people with one of a small list of medical conditions can apply to use it.
Head grower Elliot Fromowitz unveils the most important room in the factory: the one that holds the mother plants. He explains that they have 40 different strains in the room, ensuring that every customer can have their needs met. Fromowitz points out one particular plant that their customers with cancer have found excellent for pain management.
On 19 June 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his rationale behind legalising the plant. “It’s been too easy for our kids to get marijuana and for criminals to reap the profits,” he wrote. “Our plan to legalise and regulate marijuana just passed the senate.”
However, legalisation was by no means a seamless process. CMC began selling legally in June 2021. The environment has been extremely challenging under the weight of heavy government regulation, excess supply and too many brands. Severe price compression has seen the wholesale price of cannabis fall more than 50% in the last two years.
CMC shifted its focus to global exports to stay afloat. “Many companies have gone bankrupt and many more will likely fail this year,” said Ellott. “As a group we are proud to be growing some of the finest organic cannabis in Canada that is now enjoyed around the world in Australia and soon the UK and Germany.”
Many of the senior employees within the factory once sold their own cannabis illegally before 2018. “This area has a long history in the cannabis black market which means there is a rich pool of talent to draw from with the experience and passion for the industry,” said Ellott.
CMS is one of the few certified organic producers in Canada which means that it grows in living soil with no chemical fertilisers or pesticides. Soil that cannot be recycled within the factory is donated to local community gardens. The company also vows to plant one tree for every cannabis plant it grows.
To many cannabis users in Ireland, legalisation is inevitable. Ireland will either choose to repeat the mistakes of other countries or to learn from recent history.
Crainn is a voluntary group which campaigns for “legislative and policy change to Ireland’s current drug strategy”. Its spokesperson said that the current Irish government’s policy is not up to scratch.
“The political process around legislation in Ireland is quite bleak, with only a handful of politicians fully endorsing cannabis legalisation,” they said. However, trends within the EU and North America give hope that Ireland will be forced to move ahead with legislation. “It really is a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’”
The head of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use, Paul Reid, has said that Ireland has a ‘once in a generation’ chance to decriminalise personal drug use, with a health-led approach to break the cycle of people ending up in the criminal justice system.
Fears of “punishment, prosecution or stigma” stop cannabis users in Ireland raising their concerns with local politicians, explained Crainn.
The group of over 40,000 members is also worried about the presence of poison in cannabis sold by dealers around the country. “We have at present high amounts of dangerous, synthetic drugs entering the market which are putting people who consume cannabis at great risk of accidental poisoning or overdose,” said its spokesperson. “The failure to regulate cannabis during this time of heightened, artificial risk is a dereliction of duty from our politicians.”
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