NO EASY POT PRESCRIPTIONS: LOCAL MDS

Mistahia Health Region doctors aren't ready to roll out medical
marijuana prescriptions with ease, despite new federal access rules
implemented Monday. Doctors have concerns about using marijuana
medically and the new access rules leaves them in a "precarious"
position when patients begin to seek it, Mistahia medical director Dr.
Herb Janzen said.

"It is a very real problem and it needs to be taken seriously. It does
put doctors in a precarious or untenable position," Janzen said
Monday. "The public can come and say I believe this will help with
this condition... but there are no guidelines. How much is useful?
What is the dosage? None of that is established," he said.

Janzen said he concurs with Alberta Medical Association president
Clayne Steed's call for Health Canada minister Allan Rock to deal with
those concerns.

Use of marijuana for medical treatment is "not evidence-based and has
not yet had any rigorous testing regarding long-term implications,"
Steed told the federal minister.

Doctors have no clinical guidelines for when a marijuana prescription
is warranted or for the appropriate dosage to use. Doctors also have
no way of knowing the potency of the pot a patient may procure at
different times, he said.

Steed called on Alberta doctors to "thick twice before completing any
forms for the use of marijuana."

Northwest Medical Staff Association president Dr. Garth Campbell said
he shares the concerns expressed by the AMA and supports Steed's position.

The Canadian Medical Association made similar calls for Rock to deal
with concerns as the new federal medical marijuana access regulations,
published in draft in April and approved July 4, came into effect
Monday. Janzen said dealing with patients who may be looking for a
legal way to use marijuana recreationally is "not a good position to
be put in.

"It is not a good law. It is not well researched," he
said.

When patients come looking for a specific drug, particularly
painkillers such as codeine, demerol or other narcotics, doctors'
"index of suspicion (about why the drug is being requested) is high,"
Janzen said.

Doctors feel prescribing marijuana is "fraught with personal
liability," he said.

"At the moment I wouldn't think about writing a prescription for
it."

The regulations govern the possession and production of marijuana for
medical purposes. Two main components of the rules allow people to use
it and gives them licence to grow it for themselves or other
authorized individuals.

Rock calls the new regulations a "compassionate measure (that) will
improve the quality of life of sick Canadians, particularly those who
are terminally ill."

The regulations set three categories of illness marijuana can be
prescribed for, which include terminal illnesses with a prognosis of
death within 12 months and other serious medical conditions.

Marijuana is claimed to provide symptomatic, not curative, relief of
nausea with cancer and AIDS therapies. Patients say it stimulates
appetite and produces weight gain.