CLINICS KEPT BUSY DEALING WITH POT CALLS

Folks Seeking Medical Marijuana Discover Dealers Often Easier To Find Than
Doctors

A definite demand for medical marijuana exists in Manitoba judging by calls
for pot. Clinics that care for the terminally ill and support groups for
people with a host of chronic diseases are reporting calls from people who
want to toke legally.

"We're getting people from other organizations and other diseases calling
us to ask us if we know where to find a dealer," said a staff worker with
the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Manitoba.

Services director Tracy Brown says the calls surprise her.

"Isn't that bizarre? How they got our name I have no idea," Brown said.

She added the society doesn't deal in dealers.

Those calls, mostly from terminally ill patients, are in addition to
legitimate calls from MS sufferers.

"There are a lot of inquiries right now; we're averaging seven calls a
week," she said.

Callers want to know about how to get pot, how it helps, its side effects
and interactions with prescription drugs and how to grow it or how to find
a dealer.

The society refers some calls to the federal government and other callers
are told to phone their own doctors.

Some -- including people who have smoked pot illegally for medical
conditions for years -- have hung up dejected by the prospect of dealing
with the federal bureaucracy.

"They say they're already tired and they don't want to fill out more
paperwork, Brown said.

Manitoba's doctors have gone on the record with their objections to dealing
with the weed -- in some cases it's easier to find a dealer than it is a
doctor for pot.

In Manitoba, most of the calls for pot are coming from people with cancer,
MS and HIV.

At the Village Clinic, about half a dozen applications from patients were
filed ahead of the federal deadline. Since the deadline another dozen or
two have called with an interest in filling them out.

The clinic is determined not to be seen as a soft touch in the
controversial issue.

"It's not just willy-nilly fill a form out and boom, boom. They'll say no
in some cases. They're taking this very seriously," said Roger Procyk,
co-ordinator of prevention education.