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Health Canada is struggling to process a mountain of applications for licences to grow medical marijuana as the country experiences a “greenrush” of firms wanting to grab a piece of the coming boom.

The department had received 858 applications as of late last month, and new ones were coming in the door at an average of 25 a week.

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The application frenzy has drawn basement growers, well-heeled entrepreneurs with pharmacy expertise and even struggling junior mining firms trying to find a lucrative new business line.

Health Canada radically changed the rules for medical marijuana on April 1, moving approved production from a cottage industry of thousands of loosely regulated growers to a commercially competitive sector, with an anticipated 50 larger companies shipping high-quality weed in dozens of strains.

Prices are being set by the free market, and Health Canada is imposing no limit on the number of sanctioned indoor weed farms, as long as they can pass regulatory muster.