EDMONTON—If personal growth is one of your goals for 2019, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission has good news for you.

The AGLC is finally offering cannabis seeds for sale, months after legalization.

A shipment came in last week from Ontario-based company Tweed, allowing anyone over 18 to buy a pack of four seeds online through the commission’s website. The site offers two strains — Bakerstreet and Argyle, but the latter was already sold out by Thursday afternoon.

“It’s been a long-awaited product, so I expect that we’re going to continue to have some shipments,” AGLC spokesperson Heather Holmen said.

“Almost every week we get product in, so hopefully we’ll see those come back up into inventory.”

Since recreational pot became legal in October, along with the ability to grow four plants per household, would-be gardeners have been seeking out licensed medical growers willing to give away seeds or plants, or buying online illegally as no producers were selling seeds legally.

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One medically licensed Spruce Grove homegrower told StarMetro in November he’d been approached by hundreds of frustrated people looking for seeds, and had been gifting them when he was able, which is legal under the Cannabis Act.

A medical grower in Ardrossan launched a website in November called Home Grown Connect where cannabis users can access seeds, clones and cannabis through gifting or trading.

Jordan Sinclair, a spokesperson for Tweed’s Ontario-based parent company Canopy Growth, said the company initially planned to wait until spring to sell seeds for outdoor growing.

“It really was just something where we noticed that there was a demand, and we just responded to that demand a little quicker than we had originally planned,” he said.

Sinclair said the low-potency Argyle and high-potency Bakerstreet are two of the company’s most well-known strains.

Cannabis plants take several months to grow but can potentially yield hundreds of grams of product. Sinclair said a job well done, grown indoors, will yield about 200 grams per plant.

There is no guarantee that all the seeds will sprout, but Canopy has a customer support troubleshooting service customers can call for guidance.

Holmen said she expects seeds will soon make their way into retail stores across the province, though at this point, none of the other licensed producers working with AGLC have plans to sell their own strains.

Holmen said the AGLC currently has no plans to sell live plants, as moisture and lighting requirements make transportation tricky.

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“It definitely puts (Canopy) in a bit of a niche market in Alberta right now, which is advantageous for them,” Holmen said.

Four-packs are going for $60 apiece on the AGLC site, which is within the range of prices for cannabis on sites that are not government-sanctioned.

In July, one Edmonton head shop was selling seeds in prices ranging from $40 for a pack of five, to $150 for a pack of three, depending on the strain. However, while head shops have openly sold cannabis seeds in Alberta in the past, that was technically illegal.

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