THE DANGERS OF CALIFORNIA-STYLE MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

Last summer's New Yorker piece entitled "Dr. Kush" describes how
medical marijuana is transforming America's pot industry. In the land
where referendums are authorizing the use and cultivation of
marijuana for medical purposes, author David Samuels describes how
200,000 physician-sanctioned California pot users are serviced by a
robust subculture of growers, dispensers, brokers, and doctors.

All bring a certain sophistication to their trade. Typical is
dispensary owner Cindy99, who grew up in B.C. She likes helping sick
people, though she suspects there's little seriously wrong with the
young guys buying an eighth of L.A. Confidential. Best of all, she is
really up on her pot strains. "These two have sativa in them," she
says. "They're really good for daytime use." Purple Urkel is better
for alleviating pain but, she admits, "the percentages are abitrary
because of all the cross-breeding. You take a Blueberry and you cross
it with a Kush and you get back into Trainwreck, and how do you get a
percentage from that?"

And that's before you get into strains like Cat Piss and Dog Shit.
But then as Emily, a ganja-grower grown politically complacent in the
forests of Humboldt County tells Samuels, "It's fuuuun..... You're
still subverting the Man, you know?"

Only in California, you say? Perhaps.

A recent Federal Court of Appeal decision allowing medical marijuana
suppliers to have more than one customer clearly opens the door to
California-style pot-shops. This, despite the fact no government (and
very few doctors) supports the use of smoked marijuana for treatment
and whose advocacy many believe is a not-so-subtle attempt to
legalize the drug.

Moreover, what happens to medical science integrity if drug
treatments can be decided by courts and referendums without having to
undergo rigorous scientific protocols?

"The medical marijuana industry is dysfunctional," says David Hill,
chief executive officer of Cannaset Therapeutics Inc. "The government
spent $10 million to create strict operating procedures in a well
secured facility, Prairie Plant Systems, to obtain pharmaceutical
grade marijuana for medical users and the courts are now effectively
licensing underground growers."

Not that this will affect Cannaset, says Hill. Having invested $10
million in its own research, Cannaset is the only Canadian firm
developing highly purified, cannabinoid based drugs. First up is CAT
310, a new form of dronabinol -- a synthetic version of
tetrahydrocannibinol (THC) designed for treating neuropathic pain
that is already an approved drug. Cannaset's sublingual version
enhances bioavailability, reduces side effects, and is now undergoing
clinical trials.

Jon Page understands the goals of companies like Cannaset. The
research officer in plant biotechnology at the National Research
Council in Saskatoon is studying biosynthetic processes in marijuana
and hemp, both of which are derived from cannabis (C.sativa). "The
Holy Grail of current science is how to preserve the good effects of
cannabis without the psychoactivity," he says. To remove impediments
to hemp's (C.sativa L. supbsp sativa) industrial development, he's
hoping to eliminate its already low levels but with 60 or more
cannabinoids that are capable of correlating with the
endocannabinoids that humans produce naturally, marijuana (C.sativa
subsp indica) is a cornucopia from which to develop medicines.

This is important work, because in addition to potentially useful
cannabinoids, marijuana also contains more than 100 chemicals.
Moreover, its psychoactive component, THC, has been implicated in the
development of schizophrenia in vulnerable young adults, particularly
among those who use marijuana from early adolescence. As David Hill
explains, while marijuana used to contain about five per cent THC and
one to two per cent cannabidiol (CBD), today's varieties have been
engineered to contain 15-20 per cent THC but without any commensurate
rise in the CBD levels that counter THC's anxiety and
paranoia-inducing effects.

Given high levels of consumption, some experts are bracing themselves
for an epidemic of schizophrenia as today's young users reach their
twenties. In this light, Cannaset's development of synthetic CBD
appears timely.

For Canada's medical marijuana patients using untried and untested
substances, however, the prognosis is less clear. Have the courts
done them any favours? In the circumstances, Health Canada might do
everyone a favour by getting them out of the courtrooms and into
clinical trials where product and patient safety can be monitored and
where the growing body of knowledge about this ubiquitous drug can be
scientifically augmented.

Margret Kopala's regular column on western perspectives appears for
the last time today. She can be reached at the Canadian Centre for
Policy Studies where she is Director of Research and Policy Development.