A former Surrey B.C. city councillor is heading a new co-op venture to bring people licensed to grow their own medical marijuana into a co-op to supply the legal cannabis market.
Barinder Rasode is CEO of the venture, a partnership with and in Vancouver. With supply shortages across the country since Canada legalized recreational cannabis last fall, the company hopes to step up to the national and international markets.
The B.C. Small Cannabis Producer and Processor Co-op is planning to incorporate under provincial co-operative legislation to 91裸聊视频渉elp maintain the province91裸聊视频檚 historic position as a global cannabis leader,91裸聊视频 the company announced Tuesday.
91裸聊视频淏.C. has a lot to gain by ensuring thousands of existing Health Canada registered growers are active participants in Canada91裸聊视频檚 cannabis economy,91裸聊视频 Rasode said. 91裸聊视频淲ith their combined capacity, these small B.C. producers and processors could become one of the largest cannabis enterprises in Canada.91裸聊视频
The company is in discussions with some of those growers about the difficulties of moving from personal cultivation to federally and provincially controlled recreational sales to the public.
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91裸聊视频淚 assume that there are individual growers who have looked at the micro-cultivation licence and applied,91裸聊视频 Rasode said in an interview with Black Press. 91裸聊视频淲hat we realized is that meeting the standards of a regulated process is quite different than how work was done in the pre-legalization era. So that91裸聊视频檚 where the concept of accelerating these growers came, and it was especially heightened for us when we read the headlines around supply shortages. Provinces have had to pivot.91裸聊视频
After leaving local politics, Rasode founded , the National Institute for Cannabis Health and Education, as the Justin Trudeau government moved to enact its 2015 election promise to legalize recreational sales across Canada. She remains on the board, working with local governments who are now coping with the transition from unregulated sales to provincially licensed stores.
91裸聊视频淯.S. states that legalized did it by referendum, so the pro and con sides spent a lot of money debating the issue,91裸聊视频 Rasode said. 91裸聊视频淚n Canada, we missed that step so there91裸聊视频檚 a lot of people in decision-making roles that are still uncertain about legalization.91裸聊视频
The company is inviting licensed growers to contact the venture by email at david@bcscpp.com to get more information on the co-op development phase.
91裸聊视频淲e are excited to see micro-growers participate in this co-operative,91裸聊视频 said Shafin Diamond, co-founder CEO of Victory Square Technologies.
tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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