Company seeks cannabis growers
Want to grow cannabis, legally?
The country’s largest licensed medicinal cannabis grower, Helius Therapeutics, is looking for two ‘‘cultivation technicians’’ to help grow its crop.
Chief executive Paul Manning said the company was looking to add 20 staff to its small team of eight fulltimers by the end of the year. Other roles included specialist medical liaison, innovation manager and extraction manager.
Manning said applicants for the entry-level job would have to be an ‘‘appropriate age’’ but would not say what age was too young.
The role requires a high school qualification and the job, which involves watering, pruning and cloning the green crop, pays above the living wage. While ‘‘traditional horticultural’’ work experience is an advantage, having grown cannabis is not a requirement. Applicants must also pass ‘‘extensive’’ background security checks.
Manning said the company had received an ‘‘overwhelming response’’ to its advertisement.
Helius has an 8800-squaremetre medical cannabis facility in Auckland’s East Tamaki where it grows, extracts and manufactures cannabis for medicinal products.
The site covered 6500sqm of warehouse for indoor cultivation and about 2000sqm of offices and laboratories. Stacking the plants triples the growing area, creating enough space to grow 140,000 plants, producing 50 tonnes of cannabis material a year.
In December 2018, the Labourled Government passed its medicinal cannabis bill with the support of the Greens and NZ First.
It set up a statutory defence which allowed those close to death in palliative care to consume illicit marijuana with a legal defence if prosecuted. This was intended as a bridging mechanism until the full Medicinal Cannabis Scheme was set up.
The scheme is likely to make the process more simple by allowing pharmacies to sell regulated marijuana products and doctors to prescribe medicinal cannabis. Under the current system, companies need a licence to grow medicinal cannabis for research purposes. All medical marijuana products must be prescribed to patients by a doctor.
A referendum to make cannabis legal for personal use will be held next year.
Manning said Helius’ tracking survey in November last year showed 60 per cent support for legalising cannabis but since then it had declined to 39 per cent.
‘‘While it’s not looking likely it’ll pass, there has been more buzz around it with Helen Clark’s think tank coming in support of the referendum and Patrick Gower’s documentary.
‘‘All is not lost on the referendum but it certainly is much more polarising than medical cannabis,’’ Manning said.