Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
ABcann Global, a Napanee -based producer of medical marijuana, announced plans to launch a new brand they say will help patients and health care providers navigate the medical cannabis market.
Dubbed Beacon Medical, the program promises to help patients find which medication is right for them.
“We know that most Canadians don’t know much about cannabis,” said Sung Kang, ABCann Global’s chief marketing officer. “They don’t know how to use it and they don’t even know how, if they wanted to how to access it through the medical channel, they would even go about doing that. That’s why we wanted to create Beacon Medical.”
An official launch date is yet to be determined, though its expected to happen in August.
“It’s the metaphor of I’m going towards these guys, they’re going to hold my hand and teach me everything I need to know,” Kang said of the Beacon name. “That’s our intent, is to help people out, educate and connect with people that have certain conditions with the right type of cannabis remedies.”
Kang says they also hope to demystify cannabis.
“This is a plant that has multiple compounds, many different molecules working together to help people,” said Kang. “I think it’s more of a scientific demystifying for people to help them identify how the plant does what it does and why it can help them. Once they see that I think it will help take the sting out of it and will make things a lot easier for people to understand why it’s beneficial.”
Kang says a lot of health insurance providers are now starting to cover medical cannabis and ABcann is hoping to use its expertise to help both patients and providers find the treatment that’s best for them. As more insurance providers begin to cover it, the more people believe in the medicinal properties of the plant, says Kang.
“It’s very broad ranging and that’s one of the things that might make people skeptical,” said Kang. “But I think it just speaks to how varied the compounds inside the cannabis plant are and how the different components of the plant’s biology and chemistry can actually help us. I think the things that people most typically come to treat are pain, it’s really great for treating all sorts of different pain, but joint pain, muscular pain, pain from accidents, migraine headaches, as well there’s a lot of things that a lot of people wouldn’t typically go to a doctor for that it’s great for, which includes things like stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia.”
Kang says patients will go to a doctor or cannabis clinic to get a prescription and then from there they could seek help from Beacon Medical to find out the best path to go from there. A newsletter, which will include the official launch date of the brand as the date approaches, can be found at www.beaconmedical.ca.