cannabisnews.com: Medicinal-Pot Users Fuming Over Delays





Medicinal-Pot Users Fuming Over Delays
Posted by FoM on December 22, 2001 at 08:16:24 PT
By Carolyn Abraham, Medical Reporter 
Source: Globe and Mail
While 250 kilograms of marijuana sits in cold storage in a Manitoba mineshaft, Health Canada is learning it is not easy to be a drug dealer.The government announced last December that it would take the unprecedented step of growing the otherwise illegal weed for medicinal purposes. A year later, federal bureaucrats are still trying to figure out how to package, label and distribute their first dope harvest.
Officials have not decided whether to roll it into joints, send it out in Ziploc bags, grind it or deliver it in bulk. They are investigating whether to make it available from drugstore pharmacists or by personal courier. Neither has the department pinned down the labelling details of the drug's active ingredients or its shelf life.Sick people who have received special exemptions to possess pot as a medical treatment are anxiously awaiting the shipments. But with many issues unresolved, the company hired to grow the pot in an abandoned Flin Flon mine estimates that delivery could still be three to four months away."Unless by some stroke of ingenuity they can expedite the process, my expectation is that it could be that long before we have it in the hands of exemptees," said Brent Zettl, president of Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which won the $5.7-million cannabis contract. "But this is the first time anyone in the world is doing this, and there has to be due process."Cindy Cripps-Prawak, director of the government's Office of Cannabis Medical Access, acknowledged that she has received angry phone calls from impatient exemptees. But since the government is breaking new ground dealing in a product more commonly known as an illicit street drug, she said: "I think we're moving as quickly as is safe. We want to make a pharmaceutical-grade product available."Health sources said yesterday they plan to get in touch with the 680 people who have been approved to possess marijuana to see how they would like to have it delivered. There are only three ways they can legally obtain the drug: they must grow it themselves, have someone else grow it for them or obtain it from Health Canada.The government hopes those who use its drug supply will also participate in research on the medicinal benefits of cannabis. But it is not yet clear how much exemptees will have to pay for the drug or whether those who take part in a clinical trial will be charged.Over the past year, Ms. Cripps-Prawak said, the department's thinking on the matter has evolved. While the original contract with Prairie Plant Systems called for the production of marijuana cigarettes, for example, the department has since heard that exemptees prefer to roll their own.Many who rely on marijuana to relieve chronic pain or build appetite have accused the government of growing weak weed, since the federal contract called for levels of THC, marijuana's main active ingredient, of between 5 per cent and 7 per cent. But preliminary tests on the first harvest, which was grown from pot confiscated by police across Canada, appears to be a bumper crop with THC levels at least as high as 12 per cent.Ms. Cripps-Prawak said her office is considering formulating different blends of marijuana to make it available at different strengths.With a report by Brian Laghi in Ottawa.Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)Author: Carolyn Abraham, Medical Reporter Published: Saturday, December 22, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A8Copyright: 2001, The Globe and Mail CompanyContact: letters globeandmail.caWebsite: http://www.globeandmail.ca/Related Articles & Web Sites:Prairie Plant Systemshttp://www.prairieplant.com/ FTE's Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmLegal Pot Available on Jan. 1 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11622.shtmlFirst Batch of Government-Issue Marijuana Readyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11620.shtml
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Comment #17 posted by E_Johnson on December 23, 2001 at 20:03:31 PT
I'm doing okay
Thanks FoM my surgery is healing fine so far. I have a drawer filled with unused painkillers. It's amazing. Happy solstice to everyone. The Sun comes back every year by itself, isn't that a relief? Imagine if we needed the federal government to do THAT for us... ;-]
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Comment #16 posted by E_Johnson on December 23, 2001 at 19:26:20 PT
The most political medicine in history
Why does the American political elite in both parties and the religious Right want to keep me, a non-threatening upper middle class intellectual white woman, from using marijuana?Could it be because young black men who smoke weed express a desire to get up and go do something?Seriously, in terms of medical diagnoses, the group in America that suffers from the highest rate of diagnosable chronic PTSD happens to be young black men. 
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Comment #15 posted by E_Johnson on December 23, 2001 at 19:26:00 PT
The most political medicine in history
Why does the American political elite in both parties and the religious Right want to keep me, a non-threatening upper middle class intellectual white woman, from using marijuana?Could it be because young black men who smoke weed Seriously, in terms of medical diagnoses, the group in America that suffers from the highest rate of diagnosable chronic PTSD happens to be young black men. 
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on December 23, 2001 at 17:34:08 PT
EJ Thanks
I really appreciate your comments. You make me see things in a way I wouldn't have thought of on my own. I hope you are recovering well from your surgery. Have a safe holiday.
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Comment #13 posted by E_Johnson on December 23, 2001 at 17:13:17 PT
Some old Vietnam research
There's some study out there from back in the Vietnam era where someone noted that the heaviest marijuana users in a combat unit were the ones who needed the least recuperation time after hospitalization before going back into battle.And that makes me think of Louis Armstrong and the psychotic way that America in the 1920s treated black men.Most of my combat damage came from family violence, another great secret violent battlefront in America. There is another piece of nineties marijuana research lurking out there that relates to this, a study that found that marijuana made young black men more active rather than more passive as the researchers expected. Now there was actually a trace of alarm readable from the text. Young black men who smoked weed expressed a desire to get up and go do something -- and this may have implications for society, that was kinda how it went.The implications of going back into action earlier than expected. Aha. Gotcha.Now why did they expect that marijuana made people passive in the first place? I think that's a misinterpretation of the resistance to Vietnam. But nonviolent resistance is not passive at all. And trying to live in a commune is also not passive. Putting on a suit and tie and handing in a urine sample -- man, THAT is passive. And here we are.
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Comment #12 posted by Rev Jonathan Adler on December 23, 2001 at 15:26:00 PT:
Distribution of Medical Cannabis Legally Now!
As you can see the government of Canada has gotten into marijuana distribution big time! I understand UK has a 40,000 plant Facility GW Pharmeceuticals outside of London which has already developed new pharmaceutical products.
Did you know we have a religiously protected facility right here in the good old USA? It's not the Mississippi Pot Farm that supplies 300 pre-rolled joints monthly to 7 remaining
patients in the NID program. It's the only religiously protected facility in Hawaii to win in court! Yeah, we won. I propose that we venture forth to emulate Brent Zettl at Prairie Plants and produce some really beneficial medicine here in Hawaii for research and medical use! Oops! We have already done that since 1974! It's time our government works with us to provide the world's best medicine from the USA. I say we stop subsidizing other countries and subsidize a new industry which Canada and UK see as a lucrative future for them, why not us!? I am running for Hawaii Governor 2002. Please help us help you! Thanks and Merry Christmas to All!
Hawaii Medical Marijuana Institute
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Comment #11 posted by p4me on December 23, 2001 at 14:28:23 PT
Lehder and EJohnson
I heard a good word on Politically Incorrect maybe a month ago. Certainly people that use MJ are "weathered" differently than the rest of the public. I would think they have more disgust of government because of this weathering. I certainly do.And for FoM asking about if you could bring MJ in from Canada if you were an approved medical user in Canada, I would think not. Remember just a few weeks ago when the man from California took some medical MJ from California to Utah and got arrested. That about says it all. 
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Comment #10 posted by Lehder on December 23, 2001 at 14:20:05 PT
prescription for persecution sickness
Jewish neurologist Arnold Merzbach studied hundreds of Jewish children during the first eighteen months of the Nazi regime. In the first half of 1933 he found "restlessness, irritability, and increased squabbling. Some youths were refusing to eat; the more intelligent ones were sleeping fitfully and given to brooding." Similar behavior continued throughout the year, "as well as many neurotic symptoms." He
noted, "older children thought themselves objects of special attention when outdoors." We typically find Jewish adults, too, drawing into themselves, exhibiting despair, and developing problems in relating with people as one formerly supportive group after another (employers, insurers, landlords, police) prevented them from living normally in society. These sorts of Jewish behavior mimic the "drug user
personality," suggesting that the behavior may be a response to persecution from society rather than an expression of someone's inherent personality -- particularly since most users of socially approved drugs such as alcohol and nicotine do not exhibit "drug user symptoms" despite those drugs' potency and danger. In many cases, the proper course of treatment of drug users may simply be to cease persecuting them. ''Richard Miller, Drug Warriors and their Prey
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Comment #9 posted by E_Johnson on December 23, 2001 at 10:54:19 PT
The suspect populations awaken
I forgot who it was that said, "When you ask what it means to be a woman, you're picking at a thread that can unravel an entire culture." But that quote has resonated for me in my own life.But now I am finding that this is the same experience one has asking what it means to be a "pothead".Or indeed any other suspect population that the culture identifies as being in need of control.I can't believe that I actually listened to Chronic 2001 last night. I've been taken all the way to gangster rap in this quest to understand why my government doesn't want me to use my medicine even though my doctor and I agree that my life has been better for it.Now I have something in common with Dr. Dre. Isn't that rich? That's interesting. It's another clue as to what's going on I suppose.Hey do you think that it will ever be "scientifically understood" that racism makes people sick in the physical sense?And that maybe cannabis can treat some of those ills?This battle keeps turning out to be more and more worth fighting, the more I learn about it.
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Comment #8 posted by Lehder on December 23, 2001 at 10:52:34 PT
Edward Abbey, terrorist
 I don't know if any of you guys have ever read Edward Abbey (esp. "Desert Solitaire") but I highly recommend it. We have to "watch what we say" and watch what we read, too:http://www.citypaper.net/articles/101801/news.godfrey.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by Sam Adams on December 23, 2001 at 10:10:42 PT
EJ, you're absolutely right
That's what's fascinating about the whole cannabis issue, it seems like a simple thing, but as you learn more and more about the history, the reasons for prohibition, the players involved, it's like looking into a very revealing mirror of our society.I see that control and dominion over the natural world are the core values of the US - it's no surprise that our biggest religion, Christianity, also dictates that man has dominion and control over all things in the world. Look at the first thing we did upon getting here - wiped out the natural, untamed peoples and animals, like the Native men and women, buffalo, wolves, mountain lions, old growth forests.Look at how incredibly difficult it has been to re-introduce the wolf into the United States. I don't know if any of you guys have ever read Edward Abbey (esp. "Desert Solitaire") but I highly recommend it. He discusses this theory extensively in that book. He points out that razing and controlling the natural world is a key to government control - look at how rebels around the world often hole up in the most remote, wilderness, or mountainous regions.If you can rely on something natural, a plant, for health & happiness, that makes you more independent of the government.I had never really thought of it that way, but it's true. If the government can wrest away your ability to get food and medicine, they have complete control of you.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on December 22, 2001 at 19:55:07 PT
p4me
Sounds like a great idea! Where can we sign up! That would be so cool! I wonder if we got a Doctor's ok in Canada and if we had some form of residency there could we bring it back to the states? I guess that's wishful thinking but it's ok to wish. Wishing is still legal I believe.
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on December 22, 2001 at 19:41:23 PT
I was wondering about...
dual citizenship.
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Comment #4 posted by goneposthole on December 22, 2001 at 14:54:58 PT
skunk
Ms. Cripps-Parak : Please forget about different blends.
Just supply the medical marijuana patients with skunk weed.The most powerful you can find available. The patients
will appreciate the finest available.Try an Afghani strain, too. We all will thank you for your kind consideration.
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on December 22, 2001 at 11:36:16 PT
Premodern medicine presents a modern dilemma
What to do with something whose vegetable essence matters?What can the modern world do with that kind of beauty? Medicine is supposed to be pure and not beautiful. In the modern era, medicine is supposed to serve a utilitarian and not an asthetic function. Medicine is supposed to be mass-produced like a universal widget, not hand-crafted like a fine cannabis bush.If marijuana were a pill it would be legal now. Oh look well the pill is legal now!! But nobody wants it. You can get legal THC in a pill and nobody wants it, and you can get ten years in prison for growing the beautiful fragrant female vegetable essence itself.Isn't the Nature of this conflict making itself clear?Marijuana comes in a form that is an assault on the technological purity of modern medicine.Purity and Puritanism. David Noble writes that technology is a puritanical project. A world without women, like the Church. Utilitarian and rational, purified, stripped of excess emotional and material essence.Yeah, we have the Internet, we have smart bombs, we have digital phones, we have digital video, and we have THC in a pill that's legal. But it's banned when it comes in seeds and flowers and ice cream -- in any excessively aesthetic non-modern form. Especially the female form.People who are deeply invested in modern medical utilitarian techno-puritanism haven't any idea what to do with something that doesn't come in a pill. Well, in Canada they're learning what do to when it doesn't come in a pill, when the beauty is important, when the emotions aren't stripped out. It means a lot more than it seems. This is not just about pot, this is about the direction of modern civilization.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on December 22, 2001 at 09:15:50 PT
Question
The article says that 250 kilograms of marijuana sits in cold storage in a Manitoba mineshaft. How are they drying and curing the plants? How will they keep it safe from mold? That's a large amount to keep safe.
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Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on December 22, 2001 at 09:05:21 PT:
bags
The answer is likely vacuum sealed plastic bags. That way the stuff stays fresher longer, and eliminates handling costs and allows those who choose safer routes of ingestion: vaporization, or cooked with butter or oil.
Arrest Prohibition - Drug War is FRAUD
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