CANADA READY TO DEAL POT

To Meet Court Order, It Will Provide To Ill

Toronto -- The Canadian government announced Wednesday an interim plan that
will provide marijuana on a regular basis to several hundred people who are
authorized to use the drug for medical reasons.

Coming six weeks after the federal government introduced a bill
decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana and only days
after it approved a trial "safe injection site" in Vancouver for
intravenous drug users, the marijuana plan was one more sign that Ottawa is
moving in a very different direction on drug policy from the Bush
administration.

Thousands of Canadians already visit so-called compassion clubs in
Vancouver and a few other cities, which distribute marijuana to those who
come with a note from a doctor saying that the drug can help their
condition. The police have occasionally entered some of the clinics and
seized marijuana, but for the most part they function in the open.

Wednesday's decision to allow the government to provide marijuana to people
with illnesses ranging from cancer to arthritis to epilepsy was forced by a
ruling in January by the Ontario Superior Court that federal marijuana
access regulations were unconstitutional because they did not provide
patients with a legal distribution system.

The government is appealing the ruling, meaning that Wednesday's
announcement may not stand.

"It was never our intention to sell the product," said Health Minister Anne
McClellan, a skeptic of medical marijuana use.

The Cabinet is divided on whether the government should be growing and
distributing marijuana, an activity that is otherwise illegal. McClellan
said Wednesday that there is a lack of clinical evidence that marijuana has
medicinal benefits.

The government says it intends to distribute the marijuana through doctors.