OTTAWA'S NOT A VERY GOOD DRUG DEALER

The federal government is obviously profoundly uncomfortable at the idea of dabbling in the drug-dealing business.

Last year, with much fanfare, Ottawa unveiled what it described as a "compassionate framework" to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The new regulations were designed to replace exemption provisions that required people to get special permission from the health minister to use pot for therapeutic reasons.

It was supposed to be easier for those suffering from debilitating illnesses to access medical marijuana.  Things haven't turned out that way.

As part of the application process, patients are supposed to obtain declarations from medical specialists that include, among other details, a recommended dosage.

Physicians, as you can imagine, aren't interested in prescribing a drug without clear, scientific evidence on the risks and benefits.

As a result, doctors have been largely reluctant to co-operate and Ottawa has had to grant extensions under the old rules to many patients who were previously allowed to smoke pot.

Two months ago, I wrote about an Edmonton couple suffering from hepatitis C whose exemption from prosecution under the old law was scheduled to expire at the end of this week.

Try as they might, Dale and Alice Strohmaier couldn't find specialists who would help them apply for permission to use pot under the new regulations.

The day my column ran, a Health Canada official phoned them and gave assurances that the problem would be resolved.

Sure enough, the couple were granted a six-month extension.  Numerous other sick Canadians have been quietly granted similar renewals because they, too, haven't been able to convince doctors to fill in their applications.

But they're sorely mistaken if they think they'll have access to Ottawa's own research-grade weed any time soon.

Sure, the plants have been harvested in the government's high-security underground pot bunker in Flin Flon, but the stuff is just sitting there smelling up the place.

When Health Canada announced in December 2000 that Prairie Plant Systems Inc.  had won a $5.7-million contract to grow standardized pot for medical and research needs, it declared that the government-authorized marijuana would be available in a year.

More than a year later, priorities have changed.

There is no "time frame" as to when the Flin Flon pot will be distributed, Farah Mohamed, spokesman for Health Minister Anne McLellan, told me yesterday.

And that's not all.  Our official weed won't be released to the ailing Canadians who qualify until clinical trials on medicinal pot have been completed, she said.

"We're not in the business of taking risks," she added, saying the government has no intention of distributing an untested product.

In that case, Ottawa should have clearly stated right from the beginning that it would likely be years before people not involved in clinical trials would have access to government pot.

The clinical trials, by the way, haven't begun yet.

In the meantime, there's all that pot stored in Flin Flon, which, unless it's really wicked, is bound to lose its potency as the months go by.

York University law professor Alan Young predicts Ottawa will end up incinerating this batch on the grounds that it no longer has any medicinal value.

While the government is committed to clinical trials, it's not particularly interested in being a drug dealer for ill Canadians, says Young, who has represented ailing Canadians in their fight to use pot.

"I don't think they can backpedal on this.  They can stall, they can delay, but I don't think they can subvert it.  We have to move forward eventually."

Young plans to push the process along.  He's about to go to court to try to have Ottawa's medicinal pot regulations quashed.  If he wins, pot possession will no longer be a crime.  That should give Ottawa a buzz. 

• Posted by: Narcosoft.com - technology with substance

[ Post Comment ]

MS SUFFERER ACCUSES OTTAWA OF DRAGGING ITS HEELS

Already fighting a battle with multiple sclerosis, Alison Myrden says she's tired of having to battle Health Canada, too.

The Burlington resident, and federal medical marijuana exemptee, says the government is dragging its heels when it comes to producing a reliable, affordable source of marijuana for chronic pain sufferers.  Since 1999, almost 700 Canadians have been given exemptions to possess medical marijuana.

"I am still buying my medicine from the street; I am still spending up to $1,200 every month," she said.  "Nothing has changed, the government still doesn't have a source for me."

Myrden, 38, was diagnosed with MS in 1992, but says she has suffered from its symptoms since she was a teenager.

Myrden says because of the disease she has a debilitating pain in her face; pain that used to mean taking 32 prescription pills and 600 milligrams of morphine each day.  Now she smokes a few grams of marijuana instead of the pills to relieve the symptoms.  It's become a way of life for her.

"The pain in my face is so excruciating that if I don't catch it in time with marijuana, no pills will work," she said.  "It's not just about smoking pot, it's about quality of life."

For its part, Health Canada has been moving, however slowly, to create a environment where patients like Myrden will be able to access medicinal marijuana.

Following years of lobbying, the federal government, in 1999 under Health Minister Allan Rock, set out guidelines for exempting people like Myrden from the criminal charges associated with possession of marijuana.  Last July, Health Canada subsequently set out medical marijuana access regulations that included application processes for three groups of potential exemptees.

Group 1 is for people who suffer from life-threatening diseases and have a life expectancy of fewer than 12 months.  Group 2 consists of people suffering from chronic illnesses like AIDS, cancer and MS.  Group 3 is a catch-all category for people suffering chronic pain from diseases not named in the first two groups.

The government also contracted a private, Saskatchewan-based company called Prairie Plant Systems to grow a government supply of marijuana in an abandoned mine in Flin Flon, Man.

Myrden says she's happy to at least have her exemption but is anxious to know exactly when the government is going to come through with a steady, safe and effective supply of pot.

"I haven't had one call from Health Canada offering medicine from Flin Flon," she said.

But Andrew Swift, a spokesperson for Health Canada, says Myrden isn't the only one who hasn't been contacted about the government's pot supply.  He says no one has because neither the marijuana, nor the distribution system to administer it, is available yet.

"We are working with Prairie to develop the manufacturing and processing requirements," Swift said.  "Our expectation is this will take some time and the timeline is not arbitrary, it's based on a scientific process."

According to Swift, the government eliminated a major barrier for medicinal marijuana by creating the exemptions and continues to work quickly to ready its supply of medical pot.  But since marijuana has never been used as a prescription drug in this country, ironing out the logistics is time-consuming.  And, adds Swift, once the pot is ready, Health Canada is going to want to maintain contact with users for study purposes.

"The marijuana will be used for research purposes," Swift said.  "We've done funding into research into the effectiveness of medical marijuana.  At this point really it's all anecdotal.  There's no real science behind the effectiveness of marijuana."

Myrden says she doesn't need a study to realize the effectiveness of using pot as medicine and there's no need for any further studies for people like her once the federal pot supply is made available.

"That's how we got our exemptions in the first place; because we are really sick." she said.  "I cannot go without it."

Too bad, says Swift.  Medical marijuana users will be subject to Health Canada monitoring.

Adding to the stress associated with waiting for her drugs, says Myrden, is the worry that federally-supplied medicinal marijuana might not be potent enough to ease her pain.

After smoking a certain type of marijuana for years, Myrden has become what users call strain specific and is worried the government's pot won't contain a high enough concentration of THC to make her pain go away.  ( THC is the active ingredient in marijuana; the higher THC, the greater its effect ).

Myrden is also concerned about the quality of marijuana grown in what used to be a mine.  She fears it may contain traces of heavy metals -- metals she does not want to inhale.

Swift, however, said the marijuana is being grown in a controlled system with adequate THC content.  And he said Prairie Plant Systems had to comply with federal safety standards in the contracting process and is confident the marijuana will be free of dangerous metals.

Still, Myrden is skeptical and frustrated.  It's been a long fight for her and a group of medical marijuana advocates who operate a Web-based network of support at www.themarijuanamission.com">http://www.themarijuanamission.com">www.themarijuanamission.com.  She knows she needs marijuana to be comfortable and can't understand why a federally-sponsored supply is not yet ready.

"We should be able to go to the pharmacy and get it," she said.  "It can't cost more than $2 to grow an ounce.  It's like growing tomatoes."

• Narcosoft.com - Arrest Prohibition

Shame on any doctor who comes out and advocates keeping MJ away from terminally ill people - how disgraceful. Almost like medieval bleedings. Doctors are like priests - many of them are saints, but you better watch out, because while yours is pretending to help with one hand, the other is pulling your pants down to f*** you in the a**.

The police and governments at all levels have turned a deliberate blind eye
to the public service these clubs provide, from a prosecution stand point
and in fact have clearly condoned them. Nevertheless the minister of health
has made a point of studiously ignoring them and their expertise, not to
mention their invaluable research data base, in the process leading up to
the change in the law.

The law - medical marijuana cases in the courts

The most important cases on the medical issue have occurred in Ontario.
Terry Parker has suffered from a severe form of epilepsy since he was a
child. He has experienced serious life threatening seizures that have not
been controlled by conventional medications and surgery. He found that
smoking marijuana substantially reduced the incidence of seizures and in
fact would stop one that he felt coming on. His physicians have supported
him in this use of cannabis since 1987. They determined that he could not
take any higher doses of conventional medication because of the serious
side effects. He was subsequently charged with possession of cannabis and
acquitted by the courts on the basis that his use was medically necessary.
A Crown appeal was dismissed. He started to grow his own to avoid the black
market. In 1996 the police raided his home and seized 71 plants and charged
him with cultivation (maximum seven years in jail) and possession for the
purpose of trafficking (maximum life imprisonment). In 1997 they raided him
again and found three more plants and charged him with simple possession.
He decided to challenge the constitutionality of the law that forced him to
choose between his liberty and his health. Judge Sheppard of the Ontario
Court of Justice, which is like our provincial court, agreed with him and
stayed the charges. He also gave him and others like him a constitutional
exemption for "personal medically approved use." The Crown appealed to the
Ontario Court of Appeal.
Last July 31st, the Ontario Court of Appeal decided the Parker appeal. It dismissed the Crown appeal and held that the law was indeed
unconstitutional in so far as it precluded access to marijuana for medical
purposes. The court declared the law prohibiting the possession of
marijuana to be of no force and effect.
However, as mentioned above, it suspended the declaration of invalidity for
one year to enable Parliament (or more accurately the executive government)
an opportunity to make amendments to try and bring the law into compliance
with the Charter. The federal government could have asked the Supreme Court
of Canada for permission to appeal this decision. It has chosen not to do
so. Consequently, the government is working on these new medical marijuana
regulations that must be in place by July 31st of this year.
Madam Justice Acton of the Alberta Queens Bench followed the Parker
decision this past December in ruling in Kreiger that the law prohibiting
the cultivation of marijuana was unconstitutional because it did not
recognize circumstances involving medical necessity. That Court also gave
the federal government twelve months to rewrite the law to provide for such
cultivation for legitimate medical use.

The new medical marijuana regulatory framework

Health Minister Alan Rock has said that this new regulatory framework
will address such issues as the definition of medical necessity, the
factors to be considered in granting or denying an authorization to use
marijuana for medical purposes and a transparent exemption process.
In Parker the court appended to its reasons a copy of the California
Compassionate Use Act of 1996 as well as the most recent legislation from
Hawaii. The Californian law, while declaring that its purpose is to ensure
that "seriously ill" Californians have access to marijuana where
recommended by their doctor for cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain,
spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis and migraine, goes on to include "or any
other illness for which marijuana provides relief." This would appear to
leave the medical decision in the hands of the doctor where it belongs. In
addition the Act is intended to not only protect patients and doctors but
also other primary caregivers to the patient.
(continued)

I did find this, from:
http://www.bcmarijuanaparty.ca/CLUBS/artlcle_1.htm

Marijuana as Medicine and the law circa 2001

By JOHN W. CONROY
John W. Conroy QC is an Abbotsford lawyer who is involved in a number of
marijuana test cases.

Introduction and some early history

On July 31st last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal, in a case involving
Terry Parker, ruled that our marijuana laws are unconstitutional to the
extent that they did not provide for access by medical patients requiring
cannabis for their health or at least if there health is threatened in a
serious way. The court also ruled that the existing exemption process was
unconstitutional because it gave the minister of health an absolute
discretion to grant or withhold such an exemption from the law without any
criteria for so doing. The court gave the federal government until July
31st of this year to remedy the situation. Ottawa did not appeal this
decision and is currently developing a new regulatory approach for the use
of marijuana for medical purposes.
Marijuana (cannabis sativa) has been demonstrated to be safe and effective
in the treatment of numerous medical conditions. Muscle spasms and tremor,
pain, migraine headache, nausea and vomiting, and loss of appetite are all
conditions for which marijuana has been shown to be effective, in maladies
ranging from multiple sclerosis to AIDS wasting syndrome to epilepsy and
chemotherapy treatments for cancer. Marijuana also reduces intra-ocular
pressure, and is effective in slowing the progression of glaucoma.
The possession and use of marijuana became illegal in Canada in 1923 when
the federal cabinet added it to the schedule under the Opium and Drug Act
of 1911. This was largely as a result of the climate of "irrational fear"
whipped up by the writings of crusading Edmonton magistrate Emily Murphy.
Her writings were primarily based on misinformation from U.S. chiefs of
police and were written under the name of Janey Canuck and serialized in
MacLeans magazine. She also wrote a racist and sensationalist book called
The Black Candle. Judge Murphy, to her credit, was also one of the famous
five that brought women the vote in Canada, but to her further discredit,
was also a proponent of eugenics.
Throughout this time the legislation, which became known as the Narcotic
Control Act, unlike the U.S. laws, allowed "physicians" to "administer,
prescribe, give sell, or furnish a narcotic" to a patient for a condition
for which the person was receiving professional treatment. This provision
in Section 53 of the Narcotic Control Regulations has survived and
continues to be the law today under the new Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act. All drugs covered by the Act are now called "controlled drugs"
instead of "narcotics."
However, because there is no legal source of supply, the federal
government, which controls the ability to licence growers and dealers of
controlled drugs, frowns on doctors who do so, as does the British
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Fortunately there are a few
doctors who are prepared to do what the law authorizes them to do. In a
British Columbia Medical Association newsletter it was suggested that a
"letter of authorization" of sorts be used, instead of actually prescribing.
Regretfully, most doctors are too timid when it comes to standing up to
their government, unless it involves their pay cheque. Besides, marijuana
is not in that blue book supplied by the pharmaceutical industry that
gives them all those free samples of real hard drugs with real bad side
effects. What do they need marijuana for when they have all those heavier
drugs?
Similarly a provision was also carried forward into the new Act that
allowed the minister of health to exempt certain persons from the law for a
"medical or scientific purpose" or a purpose that is "otherwise in the
public interest." While not originally intended for this purpose, this
provision in Section 56 of the Act has become the section under which the
minister of health has now exempted 140 people over the last 18 months.
Typically an exemptee is authorized to grow several plants for his or her
own use. They are not authorized to obtain it elsewhere. Many are too ill
or lack experience in growing and are therefore forced to go to the black
market and risk obtaining marijuana contaminated with metals and molds, not
to mention pesticides liberally applied by those only interested in
cranking out their next crop for a profit and not for health care.
Last year, the federal government put out a request for proposals to grow
cannabis for certain planned clinical trials and to possibly supply "the
exemptees." Recently it announced that it had picked Prairie Plant Systems
of Saskatoon to fulfill this five-year contract by growing it in a
heavily-secured bunker in Manitoba. Of course the heavy security is
necessary because there are all those people out there "dying" to get their
hands on this government grade mild sedative as if they couldn't get enough
of the good stuff from the black market or better yet a "Compassion Club."
What about the Compassion Clubs that have sprung up around the country to
fill the void while awaiting the governments U.S.-induced snails pace of
compassion? No marijuana will be legally available through the first
government-licenced grower/dealer for another year. These clubs, modeled on
their counterparts in the U.S., and particularly those in California, have
a number of illicit growers on contract to grow medical grade marijuana
only for the club, which is subject to verification and testing for
contaminants.
The club obtains the marijuana from the growers, often through middlemen
who perform quality and quantity controls, and supplies it to club members
who must have either a prescription or letter from their doctors, with rare
exceptions. It is usually supplied at less than market cost even though it
is grown primarily organically and is therefore more expensive to produce.
The B.C. Compassion Club Society in Vancouver is a registered non-profit
society with approximately 1,400 member patients at this time. The
Vancouver Island Compassion Club has approximately 130 members. Many other
clubs exist throughout the province and elsewhere.
These clubs operate like hospices providing a wide range of holistic
therapeutic services to members for their conditions besides providing a
source of supply to fill prescriptions and letters for those that need it
now and can't wait for the government's slow and controlled "compassion."
(snip)

• Arrest Prohibition

Well there Anne if your are concerned about the safety of others I should be so kind as to affer this safety tip for people in your line of work: If you request testimonial letters, do not put them on the mountains of evidence for MMJ that already exist. It may take them a week to dig you out.

Is this woman even a doctor?

But that continued forgetting of the AIDS epidemic is only possible as long as the current drugs keep working, which won't be forever, because the HIV virus is damned clever.

This only helps HIV become more drug resistant.

Are these people not aware of that?

Once the currently effective HIV drugs become useless, does Anne Mclellan have a solution in mind then for the world?

...unless they die first.