A new controversy is brewing around
an already contentious health issue - the prescription of medical marijuana. The price patients are paying for their pot is what's causing the uproar - as new documents indicate the federal government is marking up prices fifteen-fold from what they're paying their supplier. The papers indicate that Health Canada charges authorized users of the drug $150 plus GST for a 30-gram bag of the drug. That works out to revenues of $5,000 per kilogram, a 1,500 per cent increase from what they pay their supplier, about $328.75 per kilogram. Ottawa gets its marijuana from the company Prairie Plant Systems, which grows the plants in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, Manitoba. A little more than 1,000 of the 1,742 patients authorized to use marijuana as medication are able to grow their own, but those forced to order through Health Canada have to pay the price. Currently nearly 150 of them haven't been able to however, and owe just over $140,000 in back payments.
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