OSTEOARTHRITIS SUFFERER UPSET BY POT FUNDING CUT

AHalifax woman is worried the federal government's decision to scrap
funding for medical marijuana research will make her a criminal.

Corrie Watt, 59, says she has been using marijuana for six months as
part of a clinical trial to alleviate the excruciating neurological
pain she suffers due to osteoarthritis.

But she has been told funding for the program will end after the
current fiscal year, leaving her scrambling to find another source.

"I'm going to apply for a medical marijuana licence," she said in an
interview. "If I don't get it, I'll find my own way.

"I live in a university neighbourhood. It's not hard to get hold of."

She obtained a permit to use medical marijuana legally as one of
about 1,400 people with Cannabis for the Management of Pain:
Assessment of Safety Study (COMPASS). She gets ground-up herb from a
hospital and mixes it with yogurt to eat, although other people smoke
it or make tea with it.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government announced Sept. 25 that it
is cutting funds to medical marijuana research as part of $1 billion
in budgetary belt-tightening. COMPASS has told her she'll be excluded
from the study and her permit will no longer be valid.

"I'm very concerned about that," Ms. Watt said. "I didn't want to go
on it illegally."

She said she used other painkillers for years but they either didn't
work very well or the side-effects became unbearable. She suffered
extreme nausea and lack of short-term memory.

Within two weeks of starting to use marijuana, she stopped taking her
other pain medication. She said she's now cognizant enough to study
Mandarin and live an ordinary life.

"I could not do this last year," she said.

Ms. Watt doesn't believe pharmaceutical companies will fill the void
because it would be difficult for them to make money from an illegal substance.

"Who else but the government can fund something like this?" she asked.

She suspects the Harper government's decision to scrap the
expenditure is for moral reasons linked to marijuana's recreational use.

"It's not to save money," she said. "I suspect that the government
can't really deal with the implication should this study come out.
That would be embarrassing."

Jason Bouzanis, a spokesman for Health Canada, said the funding for
medical marijuana, which amounted to $4 million over two years, was
cut to refocus government spending and pay down the national debt.

The funding for COMPASS was part of a five-year federal grant program
that ended in March. Only $2 million of $7.5 million in available
funding was used because only two studies met government criteria,
Mr. Bouzanis said.

"It's important to note that people who are authorized by the
Government of Canada to use marijuana for medical purposes - that
program has not been affected," he said. "It's simply the medical
marijuana research program that was affected by the announced cuts."