If you’ve driven past the Torbay Road Mall recently, you may have noticed that one of those big black roadside signs suggests that medical marijuana prescriptions are available inside at Home Grown Hydroponic and Indoor Garden Centre.

Technically speaking, the prescriptions are not available inside — there’s no doctor or naturopath hanging out in the back room with a pad ready to dole out scripts for high-potency cannabis strains.

But Home Grown is a wholesale partner for a British Columbia-based company called 420 Consulting that can help those interested in legally acquiring medical cannabis products.
“We're literally consultants,” explains president Justin Smith. “We're not medical professionals. We're not lawyers. We're not dispensaries. What we do is help point people in the right direction.

“We are just a group of people that are like-minded with a lot of people in this country and we're trying to get everybody where they want to be so they don't have to look over their shoulder and don't have to worry about the police knocking down their door.”

Under their business model, a client can pay Smith’s company a fee — ranging between $300 to $2,500 depending on the quantity of dried cannabis flower they figure they’ll need based on their own usage — and be set up with a video chat consultation with a licensed telemedicine medical professional at a clinic with whom 420 Consulting has a contract.

The medical professional, at their own discretion, writes a prescription that is then mailed directly to the 420 client that can be filled by any cannabis producer licensed by Health Canada.

“We help them through that paperwork process and help get them registered with a licensed provider of their choice,” explains Smith. “We don't work with any direct licensed producer at all, but we're happy to send clients to any of them.”

Smith’s company also provides assistance for those looking to grow their own at home instead of purchasing pre-grown medical cannabis products.

“The paperwork is extremely confusing,” says Smith.

420 Consulting is just one company among dozens across Canada that are offering the same service.

Despite being the owner of a business aiming to generate profits, Smith says it’s sad that there’s a need for this type of enterprise at all.
“Cannabis has been painted with this taboo brush and a lot of medical professionals, quite frankly, they don't understand, they don't want to understand and they're just happy to keep pushing the opioids and the prescription drugs and these things that are really hurting,” he told the Telegram by phone as he surveyed a scene of 300 or more homeless people from the roof of a downtown Vancouver Island building, most, he says, suffering from a debilitating opioid addiction.

“That's the reality of the big pharma versus cannabis. Unfortunately, big pharma pays a lot of money and that's the sad reality of it all.”
For those not interested or able to visit Home Grown to learn more, the company can schedule appointments at 420consulting.ca.