HEALTH CANADA 'MISLEADING' ON RISKS ON POT

OTTAWA - Health Canada is delivering a "misleading" message to the public
about the health risks associated with smoking marijuana for medicinal
purposes, says a doctors' group.

The charge is made in a report to be released today by Physicians for a
Smoke-Free Canada. The group says it believes Canadians being allowed to
smoke marijuana - as part of clinical trials and special exemptions for the
sick - are not sufficiently aware of the risk of lung disease and cancer.

"At this point in time, we know more about the harm caused by marijuana
smoke than we do about the benefits," says the report.

"Numerous studies have found that marijuana smoke produces pulmonary damage
similar to that produced by tobacco smoke, only more severe."

The report says that smoking two to three marijuana cigarettes a day is
estimated to have the same effect as smoking 20 or more tobacco cigarettes
a day.

Among the major finds of previous research cited by the report:

* Marijuana produces 50 per cent more tar than the same weight of strong
tobacco.

* Marijuana smoke contains 70 per cent more benzopyrene than tobacco smoke.

* Marijuana smokers tend to inhale the smoke much more deeply into their
lungs and hold it in their lungs four times longer than with cigarettes.

The report says major health agencies, including Health Canada, the
American National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Institute of Medicine,
have all explicitly recognized the severity of these risks.

Indeed, Health Canada's own public documents do make mention of the risks.
Some side effects were outlined in regulations prepared last year to
legally allow some sick people to smoke marijuana to alleviate symptoms of
certain diseases. Among them, said the government, were respiratory problems.

"Marijuana causes lung damage similar to that caused by tobacco smoke,"
said the department. "These long-term risks must be considered in long-term
use by patients with chronic diseases. They may be of lesser concern where
short-term use of marijuana is being proposed."

However, the report by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada says: "Health
Canada's emphasis on the lack of determinate evidence about the safety of
marijuana is at best misleading, at worst unethical."