cannabisnews.com: Medicinal-Marijuana Harvest on Hold





Medicinal-Marijuana Harvest on Hold
Posted by FoM on April 22, 2002 at 07:45:32 PT
By Carolyn Abraham, Medical Reporter
Source: Globe and Mail
Hundreds of sick Canadians awaiting the government's first shipment of medicinal marijuana had better not hold their breath: Ottawa bureaucrats now say that they have no idea when their weed will be ready for distribution and that only a select group will be eligible to receive it.Facing acute concern from doctors about prescribing pot as medicine and a cabinet shuffle that has landed new Health Minister Anne McLellan with a heavy agenda, the government's much-touted medicinal-marijuana program seems to have slipped into slow gear.
Special regulations permit patients with conditions as varied as AIDS and back pain to use the illegal drug to treat their various symptoms.Officials with former health minister Allan Rock said last December that marijuana growing in a northern Manitoba mine would soon be in those patients' hands.Four months later, more than 250 kilograms of the federally sanctioned buds have been harvested, but still have not budged. The canabis is sitting in a secure cold storage grotto, 360 metres underground, its entrances video monitered constantly by RCMP, who could easily arrive in less time than it would take an ambitious thief to travel in and out."They are going to have to sit around and smoke it themselves or watch it rot, because they don't seem to want to give it to anyone," said Victoria lawyer Robert Moore-Smith, who represents three clients facing charges related to selling marijuana for medicinal purposes.Mr. Moore-Smith, along with others familiar with the situation, say Canada's medicinal pot program, the first of its kind in the world, is causing chaos and confusion.Federal officials are still working out crucial details about how to run the program, which they announced more than a year ago. Among the questions is whether medicinal marijuana should be subject to the same premarket screening and regulations as any other pharmaceutical drug before it reaches patients."I think it's going to take more time than anyone expected," Cindy Cripps-Prawak, director of the federal government's Office of Cannabis Medical Access, acknowledged. "This is not an approved therapeutic product."Ms. Cripps-Prawak would not even hazard a guess as to when the weed would be deemed ready for shipment.The Health Minister turned down requests for an interview on the program. Her spokeswoman Farah Mohamed said Ms. McLellan is still committed to it, though she added, "there is no arbitrary time clock" dictating when the marijuana will be delivered.So far, a total of 798 people have been approved to possess marijuana as medicine. But only 106 of them have permission either to grow the drug themselves or to have someone else grow it for them. This leaves more than three quarters of patients in a Catch-22: They are legally entitled to possess a drug that is illegal to buy.So while cannabis accumulates in the underground cavern, patients place anxious calls to Health Canada, politicians and the Saskatoon-based company hired to grow the government's marijuana.NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis said she has received a "barrage of complaints" from patients worried that buying marijuana for medical purposes "puts them at risk of being charged under the current law."It's a mess," she said. "But is this government going to continue to make flowery announcements and then not follow through?"Even before television cameras filmed Mr. Rock touring the Flin Flon pot plot last summer, the government program had been well publicized. Mr. Moore-Smith suspects that as a result, underground suppliers of medicinal marijuana are facing greater police scrutiny."Police are saying, 'Now that we've got this federal medical marijuana program, we can bust all the other games in town.' But the trouble is the federal government's game is a sham."Geoff Varley, deputy chief of the Victoria Police Department, denies police are subjecting medicinal cannabis sellers to tougher inspections. Instead, he said, he worries that the public might assume police are in a position to determine which laws "should or should not be enforced.""It's a bad model and a slippery slope to have police acting as a de facto Parliament," he said.Doctors, meanwhile, feel the onus has been left for them to judge the medical value of marijuana for their patients without research to back it up.Both the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Protective Association have told physicians not to sign patients' requests to be federally approved to possess cannabis."The objective is not to prevent them from having access to something that may relieve their symptoms, but to protect them against an unproven treatment," CMA president Henry Haddad said.But Dr. Haddad, who recently had lunch with the new Health Minister, said he feels doctors' concern is finally having an impact. "We're pleased that they're listening to physicians," he said. "We also have the impression that the process is grinding along, but it's grinding along positively."Only patients who participate in clinical trials or agree to be monitored for research purposes will receive the government-grown marijuana, Ms. Cripps-Prawak said.But since patients are not usually charged to test experimental drugs, the government is also reconsidering whether it can recoup the $5.7-million it is spending over five years to grow its marijuana supply.Ted Smith, founder of the Victoria-based Cannabis Buyers' Clubs of Canada, which sells pot as medicine to 950 members, said few people are applying for the government program any more."The only way things will happen here is by constant, passive, civil disobedience," said Mr. Smith, who faces six marijuana-related charges."Most people are giving up on Health Canada. They figure, why fill out all this paperwork? Doctors have been told not to sign it for them and then there's nowhere to get it, so what's the point?" Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)Author: Carolyn Abraham, Medical ReporterPublished: Monday, April 22, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A1Copyright: 2002 The Globe and Mail CompanyContact: letters globeandmail.caWebsite: http://www.globeandmail.ca/Related Articles & Web Sites:VICShttp://www.thevics.com/Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmVictoria Council Endorses Softening Pot Lawshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12572.shtmlMedicinal-Pot Users Fuming Over Delayshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11623.shtmlFirst Batch of Government-Issue Marijuana Readyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11620.shtml 
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on April 25, 2002 at 08:25:37 PT
News Brief from The Globe & Mail
Suspended MP Apologizes for Decorum Breach
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) 
Published: Thursday, April 25, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A4
Copyright: 2002 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters globeandmail.ca
Website: http://www.globeandmail.ca/
 One day after he was suspended from the House of Commons, Canadian Alliance MP Keith Martin formally apologized for grabbing the ceremonial mace last week.
In a statement to Speaker Peter Milliken and his fellow MPs at the bar of the Commons yesterday, Dr. Martin said he hoisted the symbol of parliamentary authority in a "gesture of protest."
"It is with regret that I find myself standing here before this House at the bar, but it is understandable that I find myself here," he said. "It was wrong for me to take the mace, the symbol of the dignity and authority of the House, into my hands as a gesture of protest. . . . I ask that you accept this apology in the spirit in which it is afforded."
Mr. Milliken immediately asked the Vancouver Island MP to resume his seat.
On Tuesday, the House voted 173-49 to suspend Dr. Martin until he apologized for what he admitted was a premeditated act of civil disobedience.
Dr. Martin grabbed the large gilded club last week after his private member's bill to decriminalize marijuana was quashed by the Liberals in what he called a "poison pill" amendment. The MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca apologized informally to the House shortly after the incident. But during a two-hour debate on the matter on Monday, he said his action was deliberate and he had no regrets.
Yesterday, Dr. Martin said it was wrong for him to have done so. "I have reflected on my actions and had the benefit of hearing my colleagues speak eloquently about this place and about the respect that must be accorded to it."
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Comment #8 posted by mayan on April 23, 2002 at 05:41:12 PT
Logical
Don't want any dying folk to get sick from the dreaded devil-weed now.
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Comment #7 posted by WolfgangWylde on April 22, 2002 at 15:24:18 PT
Whither the Canadian Supreme Court?
Any idea what's going on with the Supreme Court? Its obvious that the government is not following the Court order. Any chance the Court will re-instate its previous ruling, which struck down ALL Canadian marijuana laws as unconstitutional?
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Comment #6 posted by John Markes on April 22, 2002 at 11:20:38 PT
ummm... wrong, but thanks for playing...
Alas, still the plant cannabis is wrongly held in classification with drugs instead of herbs, like most other herbs. Disturbing how they can't tell the difference...
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on April 22, 2002 at 10:54:55 PT
They've got it backwards by 5000 years or so
Among the questions is whether medicinal marijuana should be subject to the same premarket screening and regulations as any other pharmaceutical drug before it reaches patients.How many pharmaceutical drugs have been used on humans for 5000 years and no serious ill effects noted?The world has gone insane. This is just one symptom.
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Comment #4 posted by Jose Melendez on April 22, 2002 at 09:24:45 PT:
wrong CMA, but relevant due to similar fraud
From:http://no-smoking.org/july98/07-15-98-3.html
AMA Chapter "Neutralized" by Tobacco [07/15-3]Excerpts from CONFIDENTIAL PAPERS EXPOSE DEALS OF CIGARETTE-MAKERSVARIETY
OF TACTICS USED TO NEUTRALIZE STATE MEDICAL GROUP
by Sabin Russell, San Francisco Chronicle [07/15/98]Confidential documents have disclosed that U.S. cigarette-makers seduced
and trumped the California Medical Association in a battle to block tobacco
taxes 11 years ago.The documents, released in connection with a lawsuit against tobacco
companies by the state of Minnesota, offer insight into the behind-the-scenes
deal-making of Sacramento politics, and show just how serious a threat
American cigarette-makers saw in California's tobacco control program a
decade ago.One memorandum by tobacco industry lobbyist A-K Associates Inc. describes
how the group helped scuttle a 1987 attempt to put a tobacco tax measure
on the ballot, even using personal relationships with legislative aides
to spy on the opposing camp.``This document is just incredible. It confirms all our worst suspicions,''
said Cynthia Hallett, associate director of the Berkeley-based anti-smoking
group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.Memos show that tobacco lobbyists were in daily contact with the state's
largest doctors' organization and believed they neutralized the CMA by
sidestepping its elected leaders and by threatening to support ``anti-medicine
initiatives.''The lobbyists claim to have met ``personally'' with 13 key leaders of
the CMA, including its then executive director Bob Eisner. ``We turned
our attention almost full time to dissuading CMA from joining the fray,''
according to the memo.In what appears to have been a deft move of inside politicking, A-K
Associates said it ``arranged'' to have the CMA's governing council to
clear any requests for political contributions with its Finance Committee.
``This effectively took the tobacco initiative issue out of the hands of
the current CMA leadership and placed it in the hands of the ``old guard,''
the memo explained.The maneuver ``placed a huge roadblock in front of people like Dr. (Frederick)
Armstrong, the current CMA president, who is an avowed anti-tobacco crusader,''
the memo said.It was a strategy that A-K Associates called ``immensely successful''
at the time, after the doctors group decided to ``tokenize'' its support
for a tobacco tax initiative with $25,000, instead of the $1 million it
allegedly had initially pledged.``Our initial goal was to contain the California Medical Association,
who had already pledged $1 million to qualify the initiative,'' the memo
explained. ``With this kind of resources, there is no way the initiative
could be kept off the ballot.''The memo also describes a ``game plan'' to keep the CMA out of the initiative
fight. ``This included possible counter anti-medicine initiatives and legislation,
as well as the use of A-K's considerable contacts within organized medicine.''Subsequent documents suggest that the tobacco industry worked with the
doctors' lobby on campaigns to divert money from anti- smoking programs
to medical-care programs for the poor after voters passed the initiative
a decade ago.Tobacco Institute president Samuel Chilcote, Jr., in an April 1990 memo,
noted that representatives of county governments and ``physician groups''
had expressed interest in ``working with us so that they may receive monies
that are currently earmarked to the media `education' campaign.''``These avenues,'' the Tobacco Institute president wrote, ``continue
to be explored with the California State Association of Counties and the
California Medical Association.''
We have proof that drug war is fraud.
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Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on April 22, 2002 at 09:17:45 PT:
can't have it both ways...
from:http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/intl-tobacco/2001q3/000572.html...
About 45,000 Canadians die each year from smoking and billions of
health-care dollars are spent treating tobacco victims - even though
Canada has registered its lowest-ever smoking rates.
Rock called cigarettes "public-health issue No. 1" and said Ottawa will
continue raising tobacco taxes in its bid to cut smoking rates by 20 per
cent within 10 years.
Three months ago, Rock warned that the federal government would take
action unless tobacco companies dropped the marketing terms, which they
introduced in 1976. Rock said Monday that the tobacco industry failed to
respond.
"Cigarettes labelled light and mild are as lethal as any other cigarette
and the tobacco companies knew this when they introduced and promoted
them," he said.
About four out of 10 smokers use light cigarettes, which have marginally
fewer toxins than regular brands. For instance, Player's Light cigarettes
contain about eight per cent less nicotine and 10 per cent less carbon
monoxide than a regular du Maurier cigarette, according to package labels.
However, the labels show that each cigarette has the exact same level of
formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and benzene.
The slight health advantage of light cigarettes is erased when people
inhale them more deeply to extract additional nicotine, Rock told about
500 medical association members.
Several members of the medical establishment said they were pleased with
Rock's promise to get tough with tobacco companies.
"We don't think there is such a thing as light cigarettes," said Peter
Barrett, outgoing president of the Canadian Medical Association.
Documents obtained through court proceedings in recent years show that the
tobacco industry has long been aware low-tar cigarettes may keep smokers
from quitting.
"We have evidence of virtually no quitting among smokers of these brands,"
says a 1978 Imperial document.
However, several health officials questioned why Rock was coming down on
tobacco companies while allowing marijuana to be legally used for
medicinal purposes.
Henry Haddad, president-elect of the medical association, said Ottawa
failed to properly test marijuana before allowing it to be used to relieve
pain in terminal and chronic-care patients.
Posted by Narcosoft.com - technology with substance
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Comment #2 posted by freddybigbee on April 22, 2002 at 08:49:17 PT:
Fraud
Just as in the U.S. the government/medical community are linked at the money-belt. Even in states with medical marijuana laws, chances are your doctor will simply deny any requests on the grounds that cannabis is unsafe and/or that it's efficacy is "unproven."The medical business is so controlled by government (as in licence to prescribe controlled substances) that there is no longer any distinction between the two.So instead of the government telling you what herbs you can't use to be well, now the medical doctors tell you instead. That's progress... or more accurately, it's a total fraud.
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Comment #1 posted by goneposthole on April 22, 2002 at 08:01:20 PT
exemplifies
a typical goverment snafu.Not enough backstabbin' and asskissin' going on. Situation will be ignored pronto.
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