FEDS REGULATE MEDICAL POT

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada will become the only country in the world with a
government-regulated system for using marijuana as medicine, under
provisions unveiled yesterday.

The marijuana access program is being justified partly on compassionate
grounds and partly as a scientific research effort, and is attracting
little criticism even from social conservatives.

"When people are seriously ill and in severe pain we would support anything
that would relieve their pain," said Diane Ablonczy of the Canadian
Alliance. "Many people have found that smoking marijuana does do that."

Health Minister Allan Rock denied that the new rules are the "thin edge of
the wedge" for legalizing marijuana.

"I don't buy that," Rock said outside the Commons.

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

"I think people can distinguish in their own minds between, on the one
hand, allowing medical access to marijuana and on the other hand allowing
it to be used recreationally."

The proposed regulations would create three categories of patients, with
different rules for each.

Easiest access would be for those expected to die within a year.

Next would be people suffering severe pain, nausea, anorexia, seizures,
spasms or weakness from specified diseases including cancer, AIDS, multiple
sclerosis and arthritis.

These patients would require a statement from a medical specialist saying
conventional treatments have been tried and found inappropriate.

Patients with medical conditions not specified in the regulations would
fall into a third category, and would have to obtain statements from two
specialists.

The proposed rules would not allow so-called "compassion clubs" that have
sprung up in major cities to supply medical marijuana.

Every patient wishing to use medical pot would have to either grow it or
designate another person to grow it for him or her.

A designated grower would not be allowed to supply more than three
patients. Barry Burkholder, a Sudbury resident who suffers from hepatitis
C, said the proposed rules sound very bureaucratic.

"It's probably another tactic for them to put some red tape in," he said.

Burkholder said many patients will have difficulty finding a doctor willing
to support their application. The Health Department has for some time
allowed special exemptions from the criminal ban on marijuana possession.

Patients say exemptions are hard to get.