A medical marijuana producer has donated $1 million to the University of British Columbia to allow researchers to study the healing effects of cannabis.

The money will support research by assistant professor M-J Milloy on marijuana’s potential to treat HIV and alleviate pain and nausea caused by medications used to combat HIV and AIDS.

“It also makes a statement,” said UBC president and vice chancellor Arvind Gupta of the donation at a press conference. “There should be no reason that we should be a priori not looking at cannabinoids as therapeutic agents. We already know that 40 per cent of prescription medicines are derived from plant extracts.”

A previous study -- led by Milloy -- found that HIV-positive people who used marijuana daily had less than half the concentration of the virus in their blood than people who used the drug rarely or not at all.

The study was the first to find evidence from human studies that shows cannabis interacts with the underlying mechanism of HIV as a disease – not just its symptoms.

The money is coming from National Green Biomed, Ltd., a Richmond-based medical marijuana company currently awaiting a licence from Health Canada to cultivate the plant at a site in the Fraser Valley Regional District.

National Green has already contributed $200,000 to the university. The rest of the money will be given out over the next five years.

Explaining the donation, National Green chairman Herb Dhaliwal said it helps to make up for a “gap” in medical research on cannabis.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been research done,” he said. “There hasn’t been research in this medicinal cannabis plant simply because if it’s illegal, you can’t handle it.”

Gupta said he sees the funding as an opportunity for the university to “take a stand” on the need for medical marijuana research.

“This is the right thing to do,” he said. “This type of research is the right thing to do for our country.”