Duane Hicks
A medical marijuana wellness clinic—focusing on pain management and cannabis therapies—is now open for business in Fort Frances.
Rainy River Cannabis Collective (RRCC), a licensed and insured “joint” venture of husband-and-wife Angela and Brad Olson, opened its doors at 520 Scott St. earlier this week.
“We can help you no matter where you are in your personal health journey,” said Angela Olson, who moved to Rainy River District from B.C. with her husband in 2013.
They have a marijuana production facility in Stratton.
“This is a unique business model,” she noted. “There’s nothing like this from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg in the sense that we’re more patient-focused and about counselling.
“We’re service-based instead of just, ‘Here’s your script. Thanks for your money. There’s the door,’” Olson stressed.
“That’s not what we’re about at all.”
RRCC is focused on helping people by providing options for pain management and addiction management.
“With all of these fentanyl overdoses—which are awful—doctors are hesitant to prescribe opiates,” Olson explained.
“They’re seeing the damage they cause.
“This is a place you can come and find options for pain management therapies,” she noted.
Prescription process
A patient with a legitimate ailment can go to RRCC and expresses an interest in getting a cannabis prescription.
They’re asked to fill out a membership application form. The patient then brings in a letter of diagnosis from their physician or test results related to their illness (this is proof of their ailment or condition).
RRCC will make an appointment with their physician for the patient.
RRCC currently has one full-time physician—Dr. Stephen Brake—on staff, with Olson hoping to add a second one.
Dr. Brake will start seeing patients later this month.
The physician will evaluate the patient for cannabis therapies. If it’s determined cannabis is right for them, the physician will write a prescription and fill out the patient’s paperwork for Health Canada.
The patient then would leave with a prescription and I.D. card.
RRCC will submit the patient’s paperwork to Health Canada, and in eight-10 weeks, the patient would get that paperwork back.
The paperwork would be the patient’s authorization to possess and grow cannabis.
In the meantime, the I.D. card is important because if the patient has an interaction with police, the police can call the number on their card and verify their prescription—specifically, their grams per day, the start and end date of their prescription, and their prescribing physician.
It won’t list their condition, however, as that is confidential.
RRCC also will notify the patient’s physician about the prescription.
Clients are asked to come back after two or three months to check in and let RRCC know how the prescription is working.
The cost to the patient is $200. OHIP is billed for the appointment, but the $200 covers the prescription and RRCC membership.
Olson reiterated she doesn’t want RRCC to be a “prescription mill,” where patients get a prescription and then they’re left on their own.
“We’re interested in looking after the patient from Day 1 all the way through their needs,” she stressed.
Being a RRCC member means once the person get a prescription, they will get the I.D. card, 10 percent off merchandise in the store, and a follow-up appointment free of charge.
The cost of cannabis medication also must be covered by the patient, as it does not have a Health Canada Drug Identification Number (DIN), which is how medical plans bill.
This may change in the future, however.
Olson said there’s three ways patients can access their medicine:
•they can grow their own;
•they can designate a grower, including the Olsons; or
•they can buy from a licensed production facility (also known as an LP).
“We want to push patients to grow their own,” Olson said. “It’s very empowering, and it’s much, much less expensive compared to buying it from a producer.
“We really want to help people produce their own medicine and be empowered that way,” she added.
“Brad does consulting work with LPs across Canada and he designs proprietary grow systems.
“So one of the things we’re going to be offering are turn-key kits that people can put at their homes, in their basements, wherever, so that they can start growing immediately,” Olson explained.
“And the nice about those kits is that they’re hydroponic.”
Hydroponic means no dirt or soil is involved, limiting any moisture or humidity which, in turn, can result in mold.
The roots actually hang in a sewer pipe. The plants sit along the top of the pipe in a basket and are fed from a reservoir.
The water is pushed through a pressure pump and mists the plants.
“It’s very low-maintenance,” noted Olson. “Basically all you do is, once a week, you change your water out with new nutrients and pull dead leaves off and that’s it.
“You’re not hand-watering,” she said. “You don’t have a lot of those time-consuming efforts.
“So people are able to walk out with those kits and grow their own medicine.”
Being an RRCC member also means Brad Olson will provide “tech support” for growing.
“He’s been growing for 27 years, so he’s really a fabulous resource for the novice grower,” Olson said, adding her husband’s advice will be free-of-charge to members.
If a patient does not want to grow their own cannabis, they can designate RRCC to produce it for them.
“If you designate me and Brad as your producer, you’re going to pay less than if you bought from an LP,” Olson noted.
“The nice thing about picking Brad and I as your producer is you can tell us what strain you want, what concentrate,” she reasoned.
“You can really narrow it down and tell us exactly what works the best for you, and we will produce what you want.”
The Olsons will grow the patient’s medicine to order, and if there’s excess from the crop, they will store it for the patient in their vault for them to purchase later.
“You don’t have to store an excess of medicine at home,” Olson stressed. “You’re not having pounds and pounds at your house, which, from a security standpoint, is better.”
The third option is RRCC will help a patient get registered with another LP, although Olson said this is the most costly option—and the quality of medicine can be inconsistent.
Cannabis treatment
Cannabis can be used to treat many ailments. A handful of uses include:
•pain management (i.e., arthritis, joint pain, and psoriasis);
•reducing nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients;
•curing sleeplessness; and
•aiding nutrition retention (e.g. Crohn’s disease).
It even can help end-of-life patients “pass more peacefully,” noted Olson.
One cannabis medicine, called Rick Simpson Oil (RSO), has been successful in treating tumours in cancer patients.
“I would never say to somebody, ‘Don’t listen to your doctor. Don’t take chemo. Don’t take whatever medication your doctor’s prescribing,’” Olson said.
“But if you’re facing an illness like cancer, this is the time to open up your mind to other therapies that are natural and able to help some of the terrible side-effects of things like chemotherapy.”
Another area RRCC is focusing on is addiction management, with the Olsons planning to bring on a full-time addictions specialist counsellor down the road.
“We’re going to work with people in our community, especially those high-risk populations, to address addiction issues,” Olson pledged.
Olson said withdrawals are “nasty” while addiction is “a very complicated animal.”
“It’s not just an issue of weakness of character; they’re discovering now that a very large group of people are predisposed to addiction because of the way their genes are wired,” she explained.
“It’s very difficult to overcome your genes,” Olson conceded. “That’s why some people smoke and some don’t—because the brain will actually give them more positive feedback when they’re introduced to those chemicals.
“We want to focus on getting people away from harder, addictive damaging drugs and get them on something that’s going to manage their pain and manage those withdrawal effects to make sure they’re a success in getting away from addiction,” Olson added.
Cannabis medication can be taken in different ways.
“We’re going to be really opening up people’s eyes to the other ways you can take cannabis,” Olson said.
“This is not something that you just have to smoke.
“There are edibles, oils, concentrates—you can smoke it,” she noted.
“But there are a lot of cancer-battling properties and anti-inflammatory properties that are only present and beneficial when eat cannabis, not when you smoke it.”
Olson said her father, who has arthritis, also is a Jehovah’s Witness and he’s never wanted to smoke cannabis.
As such, she made him chocolate chip cookies with cannabis in them and now he can sleep properly and be functional when he’s awake.
Rules/security
The Olsons want RRCC to be a positive part of the community, and there are certain rules and expectations for their patients.
“If we find out that you’re selling or sharing your medicine, or if we find out you got a DUI and you were driving high, you’re banned for life,” Olson said.
“There’s no discussion. There’s no appeal. It’s done.
“If you cannot take your medicine in a responsible way that is lawful, we are not a business that you’re going to be a part of,” she warned.
“Those kind of rules make it better for everyone and if you can’t abide by those rules, you’re not someone I want to work with anyway,” Olson added.
No one under 18 may enter the clinic/store—not even children accompanied by adults—and you must be 25 to be seen by the attending physician.
The second condition has been recommended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
Olson said RRCC has strived to be “classy and respectful,” and even their choice of location was considered carefully.
While they had looked at a location on the 200 block of Scott Street, Olson noted the 500 block—which is still on the main strip but not part of the retail core—was a better fit.
“I didn’t want to disrupt the feel of Scott Street,” she explained. “The feel of Scott is a really nice, hometown main street feel and I didn’t want to disrupt that.
“We purposely chose 520 Scott St. because we’re still easy to find but because of the work that we do, unless you’re looking for us, you’re not going to come in by chance,” she reasoned.
“You’re never going to see products in our windows,” she added. “You’re never going to see neon, pot leaf lights.
“Everything will be very discrete and classy.”
On the retail end of things, RRCC is selling “typical products that go with this kind of medicine and lifestyle,” said Olson, ranging from hydroponic grow kits to paraphernalia used to smoke marijuana, like glass bongs and water pipes.
“Our selection will be excellent. Our prices will be excellent,” she pledged, noting RRCC is not a “head shop” but a “classy ‘joint.’”
And would-be thieves need not bother—There is no cannabis on the premises. Not even patients will not walk out of RRCC with cannabis.
“If you designate us as a grower, what we’re going to do is home delivery,” Olson explained.
“We’re not going to have any medicine or products of that nature on-site ever.”
Additionally, RRCC is outfitted with a high-tech security system thanks to Sunset Protection Systems, and as Olson pointed out, is located only two blocks from the OPP detachment.
Patient information is stored off-site on a highly-secure, external server.
Now that they’re open, the Olsons are looking forward to helping people and being an active member of the community.
“I think we’re going about this the right way,” she remarked. “We certainly have the best interests of our patients at heart.
“This isn’t about the quick buck,” Olson stressed.
“We want to take care of people and improve their lives.”
For business hours and other information on Rainy River Cannabis Collective, visit their Facebook page.
