Company Donates $1M to Canadian Marijuana Research

A Canadian startup that’s hoping to grow and sell medical cannabis is giving the University of British Columbia $1 million to bolster MMJ research.

National Green Biomed, which was founded last year, is making the donation to support efforts by the university to study the use of marijuana in treating HIV and AIDS.

The company has submitted an application to cultivate medical cannabis but is still waiting on approval from Health Canada, the federal government agency that oversees the MMJ industry.

“Thanks to evolving attitudes, it’s time for science to catch up” to the marijuana industry, said National Green Chairman Herb Dhaliwal in a statement. Dhaliwal added that he hopes his company’s donation will help start an ongoing research program at the university into the medicinal benefits of cannabis.

The first $200,000 of the donation has already been delivered, and the remaining $800,000 will be doled out over the next five years.

Similar studies have been stymied in the United States for years due to marijuana’s listing on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Schedule I list of controlled substances, which has led to a lack of academic research into medical cannabis.