Pharma ‘safest option’ for medical pot: Shoppers

The drugstore chain has been talking with some of Canada’s producers of medical-marijuana.

And it looks like they’ve paid for a team of high-price lobbyists to get the job done.

A report from The Globe and Mail indicates that a group of executives from the company have been engaged in a number of meetings with federally licensed pot producers over the past few weeks in hopes taking Canada’s medical marijuana program to the next level. “To get that is going to take time because there is very little information out there”.

In a statement to the Globe and Mail, Shoppers did not deny their interest.

“Pharmacists are medication experts and play a significant role in the dispensing and monitoring of medication to ensure safe and optimal use”, the company said in a statement.

Shoppers – which operates as Pharmaprix in Quebec – isn’t the only drugstore chain interested in medical and perhaps recreational marijuana, the Globe and Mail says.

Smitham did not respond to a repeated request for comment from VICE News.

“I would believe the government is going to create a framework whereby there’s going to be pretty tight standards of the quality and the THC content these products will contain”, Tse said. He said the oil is also easier to standardize because it’s an extract. Tse said pharmacists will have to wait until more details are available to determine where they might fit in distribution. “Cannabis is a natural one because of the uptake by the consumers and the death of reefer madness”. During the last federal election campaign, the party said it favoured a loosening of laws and regulations around marijuana.

But Tse acknowledged that there are still many problems to weed out first, from training pharmacists on how to dispense medical marijuana to finding more medical literature about the effects of pot.

Shoppers is the largest pharmacy chain in Canada, but they are far from the only ones.

Pharmacies are best equipped to distribute medical marijuana given their expertise in the management of prescription drugs, according to a national organization with some of the largest pharmacy chains in the country.

Under current rules from Health Canada, the only legal way to get medicinal marijuana is to deal with a producer holds a license.

“We believe that dispensing medical marijuana through pharmacy, like other medications, is the safest option”.

Meanwhile, Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne has said reiterated her position that recreational marijuana should be sold in liquor stores.

The marijuana industry in Canada, which was underground for decades, could undergo major upheaval now that the Liberals are in power.

“We, like everybody else, are waiting for the formal process to begin”, said Zekulin.