SICK CANADIANS TO SMOKE SUB-STANDARD MARIJUANA

Drug Produced For Health Canada Five Times Less Potent Than
Home-Grown.

Health Canada will provide researchers with a weakened grade of medical
marijuana that could force test subjects to ingest more toxic smoke to gain
any benefit from the drug.

The Health Department recently gave out a $5.75 million contract to a
Saskatchewan firm to produce marijuana for use in clinical trials. The
marijuana will allow researchers to test the drug's effectiveness in
treating the symptoms of serious illnesses like AIDS, cancer and multiple
sclerosis.

But in tendering the contract, Health Canada specified an allowable
concentration of the active ingredient, THC, between five and six per cent
- --lower than the concentration typically found in the home-grown variety
which can be more than five times as potent.

"It baffles me why they would go to the trouble of creating marijuana at a
lower level than the natural plant," says Steven Bacon, a Hepatitis C
sufferer who is one of 140 Canadians to receive a special exemption from
the government to smoke cannabis to control symptoms.

"You must get out of your sickbed and go smoke sub-standard marijuana in
order to get it at all," Mr. Bacon said.

The marijuana produced for Health Canada would also be available to those,
like Mr. Bacon, who receives a special exemption based on medical need.

In return for the free pot, they will be required to provide feedback on
the effect of the drugs on their illness.

But anyone who gets the government grass will have to smoke much more than
home-grown marijuana to get the same medicinal benefit as home-grown, Mr.
Bacon says. They will also have to inhale more of the 2,000 chemicals and
toxins contained in cannabis smoke.

"I would have to smoke more, and my lungs would get filled with more crap,"
Mr. Bacon said.

"That's not compassionate access to marijuana that (Health Minister) Allan
Rock talks about all the time."

According to the U.S. National Institute of Health, the average
concentration of THC in a marijuana plant runs about three per cent.

But the variety favoured by most medicinal smokers, made from just the buds
and flowering tops of female plants, has an average concentration of 7.5
per cent and can be as high as 24 per cent.

"It certainly is an inferior product," said Loren Wiberg, whose
Alberta-based company ZYX Corp. unsuccessfully bid on the production contract.

"The stuff that some of these people are growing for medical purposes can
be up to 25 per cent THC," Mr. Wiberg said. "They're saying why would the
government want them to smoke four times as much? It supposed to be for
health and they have to get all this tar and other stuff at a rate of 4:1."

But Roslyn Tremblay, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, says it was important
to establish a consistent THC concentration for research purposes. The
level was based on previous scientific research.

"The five to six per cent was decided upon on the basis of most of the
literature we could see," she said.

The production contract does allow Health Canada to ask for higher or lower
THC concentrations after the first year of production.

Ms. Tremblay said that anyone granted a medical exemption would have the
option of using the Health Canada product or growing their own.

Prairie Plant Systems of Saskatoon is contracted to produce 2,000 kilograms
of research-grade marijuana over five years. The plants will be grown
hydroponically in a secure mine shaft in Flin Flon, Manitoba.

The first clinical trials are to begin in about a year.