Travis Lane has been growing marijuana since high school, when his first pot plant swiftly withered and died in his bedroom closet. By the time he was 20, he had cultivated a small basement grow-operation.
Now in his mid-thirties, Lane owns an online dispensary and runs two 390-plant operations on Vancouver Island. He employs two growers and raises his plants without pesticides or liquid fertilizer.
“I don’t want to hide what I do. I’m good at what I do. I’m proud of being good at what I do,” he said. “I’ve been proactive my whole life in trying to move towards a time where I can openly be a cannabis professional.”
Lane holds two Health Canada licenses for the grow sites, making his pot production legal for medical purposes. But with the federal Liberals committed to legalizing cannabis for recreational use, Lane is among the smaller-scale growers fighting for a seat at the table.
The government is still in the early stages of developing the legislation it plans to introduce next spring. Those behind a budding “craft cannabis” movement warn, however, that if the law favours large-scale commercial producers, then jobs and potential tourism revenues will be lost and the black market will continue to thrive.
“It’s going to be the National Energy Program all over again, but instead of Alberta and oil, it’s going to be B.C. and cannabis,” said Ian Dawkins of the Cannabis Growers of Canada, referring to the 1980 policy that infuriated Albert-ans when the federal government tried to gain more control over the oil industry.
“You’re talking about economic activity that has sustained communities that have been devastated by the loss of primary industries.”
His group, a national trade association representing small and medium-sized pot growers and vendors, recently commissioned a report on B.C.’s cannabis industry. Economist Larissa Flister used Colorado, a similarly-sized state with legal pot, as a proxy to estimate that about 13,700 people have marijuana-related jobs in B.C.
CO-OP GRO-OP – JUNE 13, 2016.
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