Approval drags for Calgary’s first medical pot clinic
Posted Apr 11, 2015 4:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A Calgary businessman continues to jump through bureaucratic hoops to open the 420 Clinic in southeast Inglewood – Calgary’s first medical marijuana clinic.
Owner Jeff Mooij tells 660News they’ve been ready to hit the ground running for months now with a massage therapist, alternative health products and vaporisers, but the hurdles keep adding on.
“The city was supportive, it’s just taking some time for them to figure out what we fit into,” Mooij said.
The 420 Clinic saw its latest major delay in December when an appeal over the operating permit was launched by a community association. The 420 Clinic won the appeal in February, with a few more hurdles added to the process.
Now, Mooij said they’re waiting for a crime prevention check from the Calgary Police Service.
The clinic is already helping doctors who are willing to write prescriptions, but patients right now have a lot of work ahead of them to find the right product.
“The problem right now is there are a lot of patients who are unaware of what is going out there so if they do have a document, sometimes they’re going to some of these online companies, which are still dealing in the black market and they’re not getting the proper strains to actually help them,” Mooij said.
The 420 Clinic is designed as a one-stop shop for patients dealing with ailments like chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, or people going through chemotherapy.
“They can come to us with a document already signed by a doctor or we can help them set up appointments with doctors; at that point in time, we help them with the next level which is finding the right producer, licensed producer from Health Canada and with the proper strain for their ailment that they require,” he said.
Mooij is crossing his fingers that the clinic will be allowed to open later this month.
