Sam Mellace,Medical Cannabis Advocate & "The King of Pot" Samuel Mellace is one of Canadas longest standing medical marijuana activists, and for the past decade has been actively fighting for a patients right to medicate without the addiction, organ failure and death caused by opiates. He is a cancer and car accident survivor who uses cannabis to ease symptoms associates with a liver condition that developed as a result of his deleterious opiate-based pain treatment regime. He is a federally licensed designated grower who grows for himself and his wife and he assists other patients through the onerous exemption process by helping match patients with designated growers. Sam is also known as one of the most accomplished and sophisticated medical marijuana growers in the world. Labeled by National Geographics Lisa Ling as the King of Pot, Sams high-security medical marijuana production facility has been featured in countless documentaries and publications, including the National Geographics most popular documentary Marijuana Nation, the CBCs Cannabiz, and many others. Sam has always promoted safer methods of ingestion to smoking. With a sophisticated laboratory capable of extracting the various cannabinoids without the use of solvents or adulterants, Sam has developed a trans-dermal cream, by adding extracted THC and CBD to moisturizing lotions that he says is an effective treatment for arthritis. He also developed his flagship butter, made from the cannabinoids, which can be safely and effectively used in anything from baked goods to spaghetti sauces. Sam Mellace is the manager of New Age Medical Solutions Inc. (www.newagemedicalsolutions.com) a company that he hopes someday will be granted authorization to grow marijuana and provide alternative forms of consuming marijuana for other patients. However, Mr. Mellace is unable to give any of the cream or butter to patients as Health Canada has stated that any extractions are outside the scope of the MMAR and thus not protected by the Authorization to Possess. New Age Medical Solutions has been engaged in a series of consultations with representatives of Health Canada over the last year, raising numerous issues with the current distribution model. He has criticized the program as it restricts the number of patients a grower can supply, is inhumanely slow in processing new applications and renewals, and restricts the use of non-smokables as previously stated. In protest of being forced to smoke his medication, Sam went to Parliament Hill and smoke a marijuana joint in the house of commons. Covered by the international media, Sams protest brought global attention to the broken Health Canada system, which is resulting in sick, disabled and dying patients facing criminal charges while they wait up to 10 months for a license renewal. During the Health Canada consultations, Mr Mellace presented many ideas for new distributions models that would solve the issues the program currently faces. However, since the announcement of a new $17 million contract with Prairie Plants Systems, Health Canada has refused to commit in writing that it is considering alternatives to a government monopoly structure. Additionally, during the consultations, Health Canada representatives never mentioned that they were considering a new tender despite requests to see any Statements of Work (SW) and Requests for Proposals (RFP), an omission Mr. Mellace describes as bad faith. Several Freedom of Information requests into the nature of the RFP and resultant contract have gone unfulfilled and a direct request to Health Canada for these materials was denied on the grounds that this information is protected. Mr Mellaces request to the Office of the Procurement Ombusman to investigate the matter was denied as that investigation would fall outside their mandate. Additionally, information packets sent to the Liberal and NDP Health and Industry critics requesting an investigation, through their use of parliamentary privilege, have not elicited a response. Mr Mellace would simply like an investigation to make sure that this contract, worth almost 3 times the previous contract, was issued in a manner that conforms to the relevant statues and regulations and will be successful in providing access to medicine for many sick Canadians.