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Kelowna  

Council says yes to pot analysis

Kelowna city council rubber stamped a request from staff to alter its medical marijuana production facility bylaw.

The change centres around analytical testing of medicinal pot.

If the bylaw makes its way through the public hearing phase and receives final reading, analytical testing of medical marijuana will be permitted as a principle use in industrial areas zoned for medical marijuana production facilities. Those include Business Industrial, General Industrial, Heavy Industrial and Central Industrial zones.

At this point, the proposed amendment does not include production facilities on agricultural lands.

Subdivision approval manager Ryan Smith says a report was ready to include farmland, however, the Ministry of Agriculture is preparing a best practices report so municipalities across the province can have similar regulations.

"We're just waiting on final word from the Ministry of Agriculture as to just what that looks like before staff brings that for council consideration," says Smith.

Analytical testing of dried marijuana can only be conducted by the holder of a Health Canada producer's licence.

Smith says, to date, no licences have been granted by Health Canada for such facilities within city boundaries.

"Right now, in Kelowna, we have no operating facilities, but currently 15 requests to the city for potential facilities have been made," says Smith.

"All those licence requests are also with Health Canada right now, but I don't have an update on the status of those. We're sort of in the dark at this point as to what Health Canada is going to do with those."

One of those looking to acquire a licence for Kelowna is GreenTec Bio-Pharmaceuticals Corp.

GreenTec's executive director says he applied for a licence late last year and is set to apply for an analytical testing licence now the city is moving forward with the zoning and text amendment.

Norton, who'd rather not have his last name public unless his licence comes through, says he's looking at a growing and testing facility in the old Hiram Walker building near the border between Kelowna and Lake Country. He also has an application for a second testing facility that would allow him to test dried marijuana from other licensed production facilities.

Norton says he is surprised Health Canada has yet to approve a legal production facility in Kelowna.

"That actually baffles me with the amount of expertise there is in the industry out here," he says.

"What I've kind of learned is the people who have the medical marijuana experience and the funding behind them are not really the corporate guys. With that said, there are some corporately backed teams that are actually working on some pretty serious things in Kelowna."

Norton says he knows of just one Okanagan facility licensed by Health Canada under the new regulations, and that is a small operation situated in Vernon.



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