It is (Unaudited)....these are the pinks don't forget that. but don't worry Bill will be uplisting soon right? After all he posted pictures on his Facebook page at the NASDAQ
Important read/article a bottom of post. Check it out just paints a true picture.
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You're saying the audit they released is fraudulent? Is that certain?
Did FITX released audited financials? Just referencing the post above. The most current financials are not audited and are questionable as to the financial health of FITX. IMO FITX stretched it a bit. Audited financials would go back years and would be lengthy and supposedly account for everything FITX does. These latest are not that at all. just being real. If there are audited FINs please post link I would be interested. BC has talked about them and I believe even gave a time frame of May but nothing, not even the accounting firm doing them.
This is an interesting article giving a clearer picture of the Medical MJ market in Canada. I believe it to be great food for thought and a better picture then unsubstantiated claims. Informative and eye opening.
Medical Marijuana MMPR Consultant George Routhier Podcast and Interview
Written By: James West | May 20, 2014 | Posted In: Medical Marijuana Download file | Duration: 17:02 | Size: 15.61M
George Routhier has been a consultant to applicants seeking a commercial license to grow medical marijuana in Canada since 2008. He helps companies and organizations create best-in-class application packages for Health Canada, and assists them in responding to deficiencies.
James West: George, why don’t you tell me what your involvement with the Canadian medical marijuana industry is.
George Routhier: I’m a consultant for the MMPR program. Clients come to me to submit licenses or help them when they get into trouble with Health Canada with regards to answering questions and meeting the requirement. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last year. Prior to that, I was an MMAR consultant for six years.
James West: I see. So you’ve been involved with the process pretty much since it began in Canada?
George Routhier: Yeah, for longer than the half of the program, anyhow.
James West: Okay. I’ve been told that there are over 600 applications pending for licensing under the MMPR. I’ve understood that the average submission is upwards of 500 pages in length. Is it realistic that all of these companies are going to get licensed?
George Routhier: No.
James West: No?
George Routhier: No. Not all are going to get licensed. The numbers of applicants, I believe, now have exceeded 700. The total that are in there that are being scrutinized right now, I believe, is somewhere around 430.
James West: Okay.
George Routhier: There are still quite a few applicants in there duking it out with Health Canada trying to figure out what they’re supposed to be doing.
James West: I see. How many new licenses have been granted in the last 60 days?
George Routhier: I think one.
James West: One, okay. Is there some reason for the bottleneck? I mean if they’re only granting one every 60 days at this point, it doesn’t look good for the people who are much past the 10th and 12th and 15th places in line.
George Routhier: Well, there could be quite a number of reasons for the bottleneck at this point in time. The injunction with regards to the MMAR program might be having some effect, although those people are not going to be customers for the companies that are going to be producing commercially. So I don’t see how that could affect it.
But I think that Health Canada is a little concerned with the rapid growth of the market and the ability of the market to absorb the supply that is privately available to be generated by not just the 13 companies that are listed on the Health Canada website, but there’s another nine waiting in the wings until they have a product to list on Health Canada. So I believe there are about 22 that have been licensed to date and they have an awful lot of capacity.
James West: I see. So the concern is that by licensing all comers, they’re just going to make the industry inviable for the early adopters?
George Routhier: Exactly.
James West: Okay. My focus is on the publicly traded companies, particularly those that are formerly mining companies that have announced a change of business to become medical marijuana companies, have raised money from the investing public and have made representations that they’ve got a license application in so they’re going to be a medical marijuana company imminently or as soon as they receive their license. Some of them have implied they’re in the final stages of receiving a license. Do you find that that might be a little bit, as a whole, misleading?
George Routhier: Well, I don’t know whether it’s misleading. It certainly is optimistic, very optimistic. There are quite a number of licenses in play and Health Canada has stated that they are not limiting the licenses. However, based on what’s been happening in the marketplace, I think that Health Canada is managing the marketplace and not managing the licensing process.
James West: I see. So then, do you think that it’s intentional on the part of Health Canada that this foot-dragging has suddenly sort of come to be standard in the process? Because now, they are trying to regulate the industry itself rather than honor their commitment as stated to grant all applicants who qualify for a license.
George Routhier: Yeah. That’s the issue that I see right now. We need to get all the licensees moving. There are companies out there that have very good go-forward plans as far as marketing. And there are companies out there that are starting small that can scale for when the market demands it.
Those are the ones that’ll be successful. This marketplace really isn’t much different than any other marketplace out there, whether when you look at the brewing industry, there are big brewers and there are smaller brewers. But the reality is that there’s a limited amount of companies that can survive the current marketplace because until they change the laws, the customers just aren’t there.
James West: One of the main issues that I see in the whole equation here is you’ve got these 38,000-some odd registered licensed medical marijuana users who have been growing their own at probably much less than the $8 to $12 a gram that these licensed commercial producers are stating in their business plans as what they’re anticipating to be their average sale price. I don’t see it as a very likely reality that these commercial companies are going to get eight dollars a gram when there’s a healthy unlicensed industry, it has been for decades, and that these people are used to paying probably less than a dollar a gram. I mean you can’t force people to suddenly pay an eightfold to tenfold increase in what they use every day.
George Routhier: Well, you’re really talking about two different things, first of all.
James West: Oh, okay.
George Routhier: The market that’s out there, the current marketplace, let’s talk about those 38,000 people. There are 38,000 people involved in it, but there are about 4,000 or 5,000 of them who are designated growers. So you take those out. Let’s say there are about 32,000 patients in Canada, okay? Once, 6,000 of those patients were buying from the federal government. They’ve already moved over to all the private industry MMPRs. So they’re gone.
So you take those 6,000 and that leaves you with roughly about 25,000 to 26,000 people who grow at home for their own benefit. Of those 26,000 people, 75% of them are on pensions and disability pensions. The average disability pension is about $880 a month. Now, you’re putting people who don’t have a lot of money in with a position of turning them into activists because they can’t afford six dollars a gram, frankly, they can’t afford 2.50 a gram. Those are the patients that will always grow at home and the government should just back off and let them grow at home. Those aren’t our customers and they never will be.
James West: Okay. Now, the other side of the equation that strikes me as a bit troublesome is statements being made by the various provincial Colleges of Physicians. In fact, the head of the Canadian Medical Association made some rather outlandish, and to my mind, uncredible claims regarding the potential psychotic effects of marijuana. I mean it just strikes me as, well, how do you promote a medical marijuana industry when the medical practitioners of the country are more or less in a majority sense united against it or so ignorant about it that they’re too nervous to prescribe it openly and continuously?
George Routhier: Well, personally, I’d like to shake his hand. I mean I couldn’t have made him look any dumber than he made himself look.
James West: That was my impression.
George Routhier: An educated person like that saying such foolish nonsense, I mean, it had a very positive effect. That guy is a joke. He had to come out with a little bit of science, just going out using the words, it’s outlandish. It makes me wonder what type of pharmaceuticals he is taking to say something outlandish like that.
James West: Yeah. I had to go look up the CMA to make sure that was actually an accredited affiliate of doctors. I couldn’t believe it myself.
George Routhier: Yeah. You would almost think that maybe someone was playing a prank on everybody.
James West: Well, that was my first impression. That was really my first impression. So then, where do you think that leaves the whole future of the industry? I mean is it a case of you’ve got some very vocal and somewhat uneducated leaders and influencers in the industry who are making it sound like they’re against the idea, or is it a case of “Yeah, it’s really early days for medical doctors and you’re not going to see a lot of them jumping on the bandwagon until there is more research done”?
George Routhier: Well, I think there’s some problem even more deeply rooted than that that’s preventing the ready acceptance of medical marijuana in the medical community by doctors and practitioners. I really think that is the battle that they have with the federal government.
Most of all these issues stem from the fact that the federal government has made the medical practitioner the gatekeeper for a product that they neither endorse nor support. They really have a big fight with the government. And by caving in and just prescribing and prescribing, that’s exactly how they feel this is being prescribed.
Their way of reacting is sort of pulling up the drawbridge, encircling the wagons and all that and saying, “Oh, yeah? Well, see what happens here.” Meanwhile, there are still a lot of good doctors out there that have a lot of empathy for the people that are in need of these products and they’ll keep fighting. There are clinics opening all the time where if your doctor won’t sign for you, you can walk into a clinic in downtown Toronto and see a doctor. In BC, you can Skype and see a doctor. So there’s doctors out there who understand and are forward-looking, they’re going to help the industry grow.
James West: Okay. So then now, finally, my opinion, my impression is that it’s not this allowance for medical marijuana that’s actually going to carry the industry to a state of the 1.5 billion-plus that’s being predicted by a lot of people. To me, it seems like it’s not until we see the licensing of marijuana for recreational use in Canada that we’re really going to see a healthy industry here. What do you think about that?
George Routhier: I think that’s why you see so many applications. Everybody knows it’s a lottery ticket waiting to win. I mean you’d be crazy not to have an application. And it’s relatively inexpensive to put an application in.
So the industry, I mean I count down the months. In 13 months, we’re having an election. If we get a new government, they will very quickly move to turn it into recreational. When that happens, it will explode. And the ramifications for that will be felt in many industries. I think you’ll see it in the liquor industry and the brewing industry, their products will drop. More people will turn to smoking recreationally because they’ll be able to have a good time in the evening, get up in the morning and not have to worry about a hangover or any stupid charges or dialing their ex at three in the morning. People are going to love the product.
James West: Right, okay. What do you see is the biggest challenge for the industry going forward at this point?
George Routhier: I think Health Canada is the biggest challenge that we’re faced with. And the fact that I feel that they’re just one chapter ahead of us in the book, it is so hard to figure out just exactly what they want you to say. It almost seems kind of absurd that you’re going to basically put a million dollars into a business that you have to guess all the answers to, because they won’t tell you.
James West: That’s right.
George Routhier: It’s over-regulated, highly over-regulated. I can probably open a nuclear reactor quicker than I can a medical marijuana facility.
James West: That’s probably true. Based on your experience, how many licenses do you think that Health Canada will grant this year?
George Routhier: I think they’ll grant another 25 to 30 licenses this year.
James West: Okay, great. So those companies that are going to get those licenses, when do you think they submitted their application, initially?
George Routhier: Well, I don’t think that’s really the way it’s going to work. Because it’s so hard to get in now, they just keep making it harder and harder. So if you put together a good first application and you get it in there and it gets by the gatekeepers, you can surpass people. I mean I work on contracts for people now, the smallest contract number I worked on was in the low of 30s. I’ve got some in the low of hundreds, I’ve got some in the 400’s, I’ve got some in the 300’s. Some of them are in front of the others because they get better answers. It’s all about giving them what they need to ascertain that you actually can do what they want you do. And if you can do that, don’t care what number it is, it will fly through there.
If you know the right things to do with your application and to your application, you will get through much quicker, 50% quicker than anybody else.
James West: Sure. Okay, George. Just lastly, where can people reach you if they want to engage to your services as a consultant?
George Routhier: Well, they can reach me on LinkedIn under my profile, under “George Routhier.” Or they can send me an email to pipedreemz@hushmail.com.
James West: Okay. Great, George. Well, thank you very much for your time. I’ll probably come back to you with some more questions a little bit later in the evolution of this industry. Thank you so much.
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