HEY, POT GROWERS, ROCK WANTS SUPPLY

Inviting Bids For Clinical Research Trials For Patients

OTTAWA - Attention all pot growers: Allan Rock wants your
supply.

On Friday, the federal government officially released the terms of a
five-year contract it plans to give to a Canadian supplier of
marijuana by this summer.

Whoever gets the tendered contract will have to provide high-quality
dope , and security will be tight. Also, anyone who has run afoul of
drug laws in the past 15 years won't be permitted to hold a key job in
the project.

The pot will be used for clinical research trials to gather scientific
evidence on whether it's safe and effective for patients to smoke it
for medicinal purposes. Many seriously ill people, particularly AIDS
and cancer patients, say that smoking pot is the only way to ease the
symptons of their disease.

Rock's health department isn't yet convinced of the merits of the
claims. While it has granted exemptions to 37 sick people so they can
smoke marijuana without fear of criminal prosecution, it doesn't want
to issue a blanket exemption until the scientific proof is clear.

But that requires a potentially huge supply of marijuana for the
clinical trials, in which research organizations will recruit people
from across Canada. Soon after he announced plans last year to proceed
with clinical trials, it became clear that Rock preferred a domestic
marijuana supplier for the project, instead of having to rely on
government-sanctioned U.S. growers.

A confidential government document leaked last December that laid out
the business framework for the project revealed that Health Canada
plans to distribute nearly one million marijuana cigarettes over the
five-year trials to ailing Canadians and researchers.

Health Canada, according to the document, would "contribute up to $1.5
million per year for investment in clinical, basic and applied
research on marijuana and cannabinoids."

Among the contract terms:

* The contractor will have to "produce a reliable source of
affordable, quality, standardized marijuana products." * The
contractor will have to grow, process, and store the marijuana plants,
as well as manufacture the marijuana cigarettes and distribute them to
"recipients authorized by Health Canada." Bidders must respond by June
6.

In Montreal, meanwhile, Canadian Press reported that Marc St-Maurice
wants to have a pot party in the Commons.

The founder and leader of Quebec's Bloc Pot - which garnered almost
10,000 votes but no seats in the 1998 provincial election - announced
yesterday he has applied to create the federal Marijuana party to
lobby for legalization of pot.

He made the announcement during a demonstration in which many of the
3,000 marchers toked up with impunity under the noses of police.