Ann: TWH to Acquire AusCann Group Holdings Ltd, page-36

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AusCann’s plan might seem fairly solid - but the tiny Christmas Island community isn't on board.

At the moment, the majority of Christmas Island’s population (around 2000) don’t support the growth of medicinal cannabis - or so says the Island’s Shire President, Gordon Thomson.
Thomson told Hack that a significant proportion of his community feared AusCann’s crops would end up in the hands of young people.

“Logically, it’s likely, isn’t it,” Thomson says.

“They [the community] don’t want the place to be awash with pot, and I understand their point of view. Although I don’t necessarily agree with it.”

Raul Arboleda via Getty Images

Thomson’s umbrage with AusCann’s plan is twofold - he thinks a massive security operation to “keep young people out” of the marijuana would be a “stupid” eyesore; and he doesn’t want his community and their land to be exploited for big profit - with nothing given back to locals.

Keep in mind just how fertile the medicinal marijuana industry is: in the US, the legal marijuana industry (86% of which is used for medicinal purposes) raked in US$2.7 billion during 2014. It's one of America's fastest-growing industries.

“I encouraged [AusCann] to have local people involved [in the project] have a stake in it. Their view of that is, I think, ‘well you’ll get employment. And we’ll take everything and turn it into fat profits for our company'," Thomson says.

But AusCann’s Mal Washer doesn’t agree.

He says his work for AusCann isn’t done for the money, even though the business could be hugely profitable. “I feel good about doing it. That’s my reward,” Mal says.

I’ve seen a lot of people suffer. particularly in palliative care where medical cannabis would be of great value. So I’m passionate from a medical point of view.”

But Washer also says AusCann wants to get the community involved, and eventually offer them financial stakes in their project. He understands how it could seem like AusCann has rocked up out of the blue - ready to use their land, give nothing back financially, and open up the floodgates for young people to blaze it.

“If I was them I’d get a bit peeved by that too - and that’s not our intention. It’s just premature to start talking business with them when we’re only doing trials at this stage,” Washer explains.

As for young people getting their hands on Australia’s first legal cannabis crops? Even if they could, they wouldn’t want to, Washer says, because the type of medicinal marijuana wouldn’t make for a good toke.

“At the end of the day, this medicinal marijuana we’ll be planting is going to be low in THC, less than point 1 percent. It’s the THC that gives recreational users the high.

“They’re not going to get anything out of it recreationally.”

But Thomson doesn’t buy Washer’s argument. “I’m quite sure [the medicinal cannabis] would have a pleasant effect. That’s why they’re growing the stuff.”
What’s Plan B?

AusCann aren’t the types to back down. Hack asked Mal Washer where their crops could find their next home if Christmas Island doesn’t work out.

Western Australia has options galore, Mal says. “From Kununnurra in the North to Albany in the South, you’ve got a heck of a range of good growing conditions.”

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/medicinal-cannabis/7071636