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Pot biz wants to grow in Burnaby

He knows how much medical marijuana can help a dying man. Several years ago, Martin Drobny’s uncle was diagnosed with cancer, and he eventually died of the disease.
Vancouver MediCann
Homeless: Martin Drobny, left, and Mike Green, right, are struggling to find a location for their medical marijuana production company. Without a location, they can’t submit their application to Health Canada, but they’re hoping they’ll find a home in Burnaby.

He knows how much medical marijuana can help a dying man.

Several years ago, Martin Drobny’s uncle was diagnosed with cancer, and he eventually died of the disease. Drobny credits medical marijuana for providing his uncle with some comfort before his death.

“And this is a guy who’s never smoked pot in his life,” Drobny says.

It was Drobny’s mother who suggested his uncle try medical marijuana to help ease the symptoms of cancer.

After seeing the way it helped his uncle, Drobny, a North Vancouver firefighter, talked to his mom about the possibility of becoming a medical marijuana producer under Health Canada’s soon-to-expire Marijuana Medical Access Regulations.

“It’s such a good thing,” he said. “It’s incredible when you see the change in people’s lives, and we just want to keep it going.”

Under the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations, Health Canada allowed private citizens to produce medical marijuana for personal use on a limited scale. Drobny became a licensed producer and was growing medical marijuana for friends and family with ongoing medical problems such as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord issues and cancer.

As of April 1, however, Health Canada’s new Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations take effect, voiding all licences issued under the old regulations.

The new regulations move the production of medical marijuana out of backyards and residential areas and into large-scale manufacturing facilities.

“We actually have an opportunity to pursue our passions and make a living out of it,” Drobny said.

Since Health Canada announced the changes to the medical marijuana production regulations, a number of companies have cropped up across the country. Drobny wants his company, Vancouver MediCann to be next.

But the application process hasn’t been easy.

The new regulations require prospective companies find a facility in which to operate prior to applying for a licence.

Drobny and his partners have been struggling to find a municipality that will take them. In one case, Drobny said he and his partners were putting the finishing touches on a lease agreement when a municipality (Drobny wouldn’t say on the record which one) revoked their approval.

“We’ve had flips on us where they said, ‘Oh ya, everything’s great, good,’ … and the day before we’re going to sign our lease, we were just notified that actually (they’re) putting on a 60-day hold because council wants to review everything,” he said.

In this case, the municipality was worried MediCann would apply to be zoned agricultural, which they are eligible for, and pay only minimum municipal taxes.

Drobny told the municipality MediCann had no intention of applying to be zoned agricultural and would be operating as medium-to-heavy industry.

Without a location, MediCann can’t submit its application, which has put Drobny and his partners in a type of limbo while they try and find a municipality – but they’re hoping the City of Burnaby will be more cooperative.

According to Lou Pelletier, director of planning and building in Burnaby, council is currently in the process of amending the zoning bylaw to accommodate medical marijuana producers.

“The new bylaw provisions would require an applicant to obtain council approval through the rezoning process, with a required public hearing,” he added in an email to the NOW in January.

Drobny sent a letter to council early in January and has since been working with city staff to find the most appropriate location for the MediCann facility.

“We just need our location, so we would just like councillors to be a little more open with us as far as where their train of thought is, because I can guarantee you we can mitigate any issues or questions,” he said. “Once municipalities have a little more experience with (Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations) producers, I think they’ll enjoy having them there because we will be the least problematic and the most regulated.”

While he was surprised the federal government decided to change the way medical marijuana was produced, Drobny said it was a change for the better.

“This is a good thing, it really is,” he said. “I’m a firefighter and going into a burning building caused by a grow-op, you can be dealing with who-knows-what chemicals.”

Under the old regulations, there were no guidelines for growers, no inspections, no quality control, no inventory and no required security measures to protect the product. The new regulations, however, have hundreds of requirements, right down to tracking each plant’s growth from seed to flower. 

“This way it’s going to be a fully-legitimized business. I think it’s going to bring more credibility and with bigger money being brought into this new business, the focus is going to be on the science, the studies,” he said.

Drobny and his partners can complete their application to send to Health Canada once MediCann secures a location for its facility and receives the necessary approval from Burnaby, Drobny added.

“We don’t want to sign any lease until we have the municipality’s blessing. We don’t want to operate in a municipality where the government doesn’t like us. We’re not interested in that,” he said. “But time is of the essence.”