CANADA TO EASE LAW ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE

OTTAWA - Canada plans to make it easier to possess and
cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, Canada's health minister,
Allan Rock, said today.

Mr. Rock laid out proposed regulations that would allow marijuana to
be used by those with terminal illnesses and chronic conditions like
severe arthritis, cancer, AIDS or H.I.V., multiple sclerosis, epilepsy
and spinal cord injury.

"Canada is acting compassionately by allowing people who are suffering
from grave and debilitating illnesses to have access to marijuana for
medical purposes," he said.

Assistant Deputy Health Minister Dann Michols acknowledged at a news
briefing that American authorities had serious questions about the
medicinal uses of marijuana.

"There are reservations in many places about this particular
approach," he said. "It's very difficult to say they're right, we're
wrong, or vice versa."

Mr. Rock first allowed Canadians to apply for medical use of marijuana
in May 1999, and 220 people have received exemptions from the law
banning its use.

But in a July case involving an epileptic man who claimed the right to
grow and use marijuana for medicinal purposes, Ontario's highest court
ruled that the federal government should make the process more
transparent, particularly by defining who can apply.

The government intends the rules to apply by the court deadline of
July 31.

The rules would still require people to apply for exemptions from the
general ban. But they would eliminate the current standardized limits
on the amount of marijuana that an approved patient can possess.

Mr. Michols said government scientists were concerned about negative
effects that smoking marijuana might have on patients, but Mr. Rock
dismissed the idea that medical use of marijuana was the first step to
its decriminalization.

"We've had medical access to morphine and heroin for a long time," he
said, "and it hasn't been the thin edge of the wedge for legalizing
those drugs."

Mr. Rock, who as a university student spent a day in 1969 driving John
Lennon around Ottawa, was asked two years ago if he had smoked marijuana.

"Not for medical purposes," he replied.