Medical marijuana info storefront coming to Ottawa

Ottawa site for National Access Cannabis Centre.

Coming soon to a store near you: access to information on medical marijuana. A B.C.-based company is taking over a shop in Ottawa's Hintonburg neighbourhood to open up a storefront that will offer advice and, eventually it hopes, dispense the drug. The company is called National Access Cannabis.  Its first franchise just opened in Victoria but now it has set its sight on Ottawa to access the ear of the federal government. The Victoria operation currently offers information to what it calls its "members".  For $100, patients have the services of a pharmacist and physician to help them access cannabis as a medicine.

‘We are hoping to open 40 of these across Canada as soon as we can,’ explains CEO and founder Alex Abellan.

The company plans to open its first Ottawa shop in trendy Hintonburg.  The current store, Heavens to Betsy, is leaving. Its owner is a little surprised at what is coming in its place.

‘I’m all for that kind of business,’ explains co-owner Dawn Carlisle, ‘but we have a lot of local shoppers that come here and our customers have said they were hoping it would be a little shop that replace it, or a cafe or studio.’

National Access Cannabis is clear that it will not be dispensing medical marijuana from the Wellington Street site.  It isn't allowed to under Health Canada guidelines.  But, its founder and CEO says that is its ultimate aim and one of the major reasons it is opening in Ottawa.

‘It is capital of Canada,’ said Abellan in an interview from the Victoria store, ‘we are here to work with the government within the guidelines of Health Canada regulations. We are not dispensing. Even though we are a pharmacy model, we should be dispensing but we are not allowed to: so we are allowing our licensed producers to send the cannabis through the mail. Our goal is to show Health Canada that we should be able to dispense it though because we are a pharmacy model and can offer drug interaction information and feedback that licensed producers aren't presently offering.’

That concerns the owner of the bike shop next door to where the cannabis store will be.

‘Part of my confusion,’ says Ian Fraser, the owner of Cyclelogik, ‘is that if this is a medical product, why don't people go to a doctor, get a prescription or go to a pharmacy and pick it up? I don't know what the end game is and I have a lot of nefarious concerns about what that is.’

The councillor for the area was planning to meet Wednesday afternoon with representatives of the company to discuss any concerns.

‘I am aware that marijuana and drugs still have a stigma around it,’ says Councillor Jeff Leiper, ‘so I am hearing legitimate concerns from businesses about what this may mean for their main street but generally what I am hearing from residents and people is that this shouldn't be a big problem.’

Leiper says Hintonburg’s historical problems with drug issues have prompted concerns in the neighbourhood.

‘Hintonburg had a real problem with hard drugs about 15 years ago where crack and heroin were common on our streets,’ explains Leiper, ‘in this case I think a lot of people will see big gap between medicinal marijuana and hard drugs like crack or heroin.’

Besides, Leiper says, the company will not be selling marijuana at the location.

‘This isn't a location where that will be allowed,’ says Leiper, ‘the city of Ottawa has a regime to make sure marijuana medical facilities are located well away from residential areas. This operation doesn't seem to be offering to dispense, purely prescribing it.’

The founder of the company hopes to open his two Ottawa stores by June at the latest.  The second one will go in the Bank and Gladstone area.  They are already advertising on-line for a medical director to be based here in Ottawa.