Cannabis industry says it can help

On the outskirts of Toronto, next to Pearson International Airport, there is a 16,000-square-foot cannabis testing laboratory whose owner says it can process 500 coronavirus tests a day. With an investment for additional equipment, that number could rise to more than 1,000 tests a day.

“Testing right now is just way too slow, it’s unbearably slow,” John Slaughter, CEO of High North Laboratories, said. “So we started looking internally to see what would it take for us to do that kind of testing and found out it wasn’t really much. We were right on the cusp of it anyway.”

The lab would have to be certified to biosafety standards level two, Slaughter said, but amid the crisis, he is hopeful that certification could come quickly. The first step, and perhaps most challenging, is getting the government to listen.

Slaughter said he has been attempting to reach Health Canada, Ontario Public Health, the BDC and other organizations since March 13, but has not yet received a response.

He sympathizes with the overwhelmed organizations, but feels there’s a gap in knowledge about the capabilities of the cannabis industry and the role it could play during the pandemic.

“I really think that Industry Canada needs to update its list of companies that can help and understand that there’s a lot of new facilities that have changed and become first-tier facilities,” Slaughter said. “Our facility is less than a year old. Everything’s brand new, let’s use it.”

George Smitherman, a former minister of health for Ontario and now the president and CEO of the Cannabis Council of Canada, says he is working to connect the cannabis industry and health officials.

“In any case where I find out that someone’s struggling to get their information across, I can certainly be a conduit,” Smitherman said, adding he wasn’t familiar with High North’s situation, but that he isn’t surprised to learn about their capabilities.

“I do know there is some amazing lab capacity out there and I can initiate an expedited contact with Ontario Public Health,” he said.

Smitherman said it’s a case of “information overload” as public health agencies scramble to stay on top of the pandemic. “It can be difficult to get your information across to the proper spot,” he said, before pointing to cannabis companies across the country that are supporting frontline workers.

Ontario-based Canopy Growth, the nation’s largest cannabis company, has started donating personal protective equipment and safety masks to hospitals. In Quebec, licensed producer HEXO has donated safety masks to EMS workers. In New Brunswick, Organigram has donated 500 litres of ethanol to be used in the production of hand sanitizer.