FEDS' POT CROP NOT UP TO SNUFF

Oops! The official supply of federal pot is bad weed.

So impure, in fact, that the first crop contains 185 different varieties of
pot.

Hardly the stuff a health minister would want to provide to a seriously ill
patient to relieve their symptoms.

Health Minister Anne McLellan revealed the "problem"

Tuesday, saying it's responsible for the delay -- which could last at least
several more months -- for getting the department's much-heralded plan off
the ground to provide marijuana to Canadians who need it for medicinal
purposes.

She said the unreliable pot stems from the seeds that were used.

Initially, the federal government had hoped to obtain a standardized seed
from the U.S. government, but officials in the American Drug Enforcement
Agency refused to share the stuff.

That meant our officially sanctioned grower, who harvested the pot at an
underground mine in Flin Flon, Man., was left using seeds obtained by
police, who confiscated it during their law enforcement work.

Not surprisingly, then, the first crop of nearly 2,000 plants -- which was
completed in the fall and was supposed to be distributed early this year --
contained a rainbow of varying potencies and purities.

The government is now having its pot tested to find the best strain so that
a "quality, standardized" seed can be used for the second crop of plants,
said McLellan. Until then, sick Canadians who were approved to smoke the
stuff and were counting on the official federal pot as their supply will
have to wait.

"It is a problem," McLellan told reporters about the delay. "I'm not here
to pretend."

But she said the government has an obligation to ensure that the marijuana
it provides people is of a consistent quality -- in part because the pot
would be given out as part of clinical trials to determine whether the
claims are true about the medicinal benefits. Without a standardized crop,
she said, researchers monitoring the sick patients would have no way of
knowing whether the marijuana is having the desired effects.

She urged people to remember that Canada is the first country in the world
to launch a program, based on compassionate grounds, to test the merits of
medicinal marijuana.

"So in fact, trial and error is going to be a part of this. I think people
have to be patient."

Nonetheless, the delay is an embarrassment for Health Canada. Its former
minister, Allan Rock, pushed the the department to adopt a more
compassionate approach to medical marijuana.

New regulations came into effect last summer that allow certain patients
with chronic or terminal illnesses to apply to Health Canada for permission
to use marijuana. The regulations apply to patients who have less than a
year to live; those suffering from AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, spinal
cord injuries, severe arthritis or epilepsy; and to patients suffering from
other conditions, if marijuana is recommended by two specialists.

In each case, the application must be signed by a doctor, who must, among
other things, agree that the "benefits from the applicant's recommended use
of marijuana outweigh any risks associated with that use."

Those who qualify can grow marijuana on their own, have another approved
grower do it for them, or get the weed from the government.