Canadian Lawyer InHouse

43 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 P r o f e s s i o n a l P r o f i l e JUST DAYS BEFORE cannabis became offficially legal in Canada, Jason Alexander was driving east toward Bowmanville, a town of about 40,000 people located 75 kilometres from Toronto. The town is home to Starseed Medicinal Inc.'s facility that had been working around the clock in the lead-up to legalization on Oct. 17. The reason for his trip was to join his compliance and quality assurance team in a celebratory barbecue. The company had finally made it to the home stretch in the frenzied lead-up to legalization. As a chief legal officr in the cannabis industry in Canada, Alexander has been juggling all the issues in-house counsel in the sector have encountered in the last year. While very medicinally focused, Starseed will also be selling some product in the recreational channel as well. Because of that, it has had to ship product to Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatachewan all in anticipation of the day cannabis became legal in Canada. "We have been very successful in getting everything out the door in compliance with all legislation," says Alexander, who joined Starseed in April of this year. Starseed works with employers, insurers and plan sponsors to provide medical can - nabis. It is a subsidiary of Starseed Holdings Inc., a licensed producer of medical cannabis. In May of this year, Starseed was the first medical cannabis company to form a partner- ship with a large private health benefit plan, announcing it had launched its medical can- nabis supply and service model with Laborers' International Union of North America, Can- ada's largest construction union with 120,000 members. Other challenges Alexander has been deal- ing with have been around the ability for those in the cannabis industry to travel to the U.S. It wasn't until mid-October that U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a clari- fying statement due to concerns about travel bans to travellers from Canada who work for or are associated with cannabis and cannabis companies. No longer will the U.S. prohibit those in the cannabis industry from entering the U.S. for personal reasons, but they may still have issues if the intention is to expand into the U.S. Starseed had been limiting its travel, turn - ing down invitations to conferences in the U.S. "It's sort of crazy when you're talking about medical cannabis and people with prescrip- tions and medical documents from doctors being subjected to a lifetime ban because they are taking medicine," says Alexander. Immigration firm Green and Spiegel LLP held a seminar in the early fall for people in the cannabis industry saying es - sentially "Watch out." "The guidance we're getting now is so long as the activity [the business] takes place in Canada you're going to be OK," says Evan Green, senior partner at Green and Spiegel. "If you have U.S. interests and are trying to expand, that will be problemataic." Alexander's role at Starseed includes taking a lead role in educating its members through seminars and clinics to help union members understand the best way to develop workplace polices around medical cannabis use. "A lot of my job is involved in helping to prepare the employee communications," he Changing the conversation on cannabis Medicinal cannabis company is the first to form a partnership with a large private health benefit plan. BY JENNIFER BROWN says. "It's quite different from your typical general counsel role." Starseed recently released a paper called "Medical Cannabis in the Workplace." "I think there is a lot of misinformation out there, which is the reason we put to - gether the brochure," says Alexander. "We want people to be better educated. Some employers are more accepting and it's [med- ical cannabis] hopefully going to get some employees off opioids or using cannabis in lieu of opioids." He says employers are starting to under- stand there is a difference between the differ- ent forms of cannabis such as high-CBD can- nabis and high-THC cannabis. "CBD doesn't have any psychoactive com- ponents, so it's a much safer pain medication than a lot of pain medications out there. In- formation like that is really part of the educa- tion component of helping employers who are being a little more receptive to the concept of having polices in place for cannabis," he says. Alexander says all employers should have a workplace policy in place where employees feel comfortable saying: "I have a medical condition and I have been prescribed this can - nabis." "There is a level of confidentiality involved and the employee should know they can speak to HR or whoever is involved, on a confiden- tial basis, on the fact these are the medications they are on," he says. In working with a major construction union such as LiUNA, Alexander says, the idea was to find a better, safer way to treat chronic pain to a committed customer base particularly vulnerable to chronic pain and correspondently to opioid use. "In terms of dealing with health and safety issues, we're starting with the hardest segment of society and developing policies for them," he says. "In my mind, it goes back to the educa - tion — you want to make sure all employees are aware of cannabis in the workplace and how it works and to set expectations and reduce risks — they really understand what does it mean if I have a disability, who do I tell on a confidential basis and how do I

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