DUTCH HEALTH MINISTER EXTENDS MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM FOR FIVE YEARS

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: The Dutch Health Ministry announced plans
Wednesday to extend its experimental medical marijuana program for
five years, despite setbacks.

Under the program, launched in 2003, standardized marijuana is grown
by government-licensed growers under controlled conditions and sold
by prescription in pharmacies.

But few patients, even armed with a doctor's prescription, bought the
regulated weed since they could buy it at a third of the price in
"coffee shops," where it remains illegal but tolerated if sold in
small amounts.

The medical marijuana plan was meant to allow the growers licensed by
the ministry's Bureau for Medical Cannabis to build a customer base
and eventually take over production from illegal growers. It also
would give companies a chance to develop and register cannabis-based
prescription drugs.

Health Minister Ab Klink said in a letter to parliament Wednesday
that one Dutch company, Echo Pharmaceuticals BV, had made progress
gaining approval for its drug, and he wanted to give it more time to succeed.

"This development track will take years, but it can yield scientific
evidence and give insight into the balance between safety and
effectiveness of medical cannabis," he wrote.

"By making medical marijuana available as a raw material for five
years, I want to give this track a serious chance."

The Bureau for Medical Cannabis would operate at a loss of around
€200,000 (US$290,000) this year because of unsold surpluses, Health
Ministry spokeswoman Karin Donk said.

Echo spokesman Geert Woerlee said his company would be starting
trials next year of its pill, which contains one of the main active
chemicals in marijuana, THC, in purified form.

Klink said he hoped the drug under development by Echo would
eventually replace marijuana in pharmacies.

The ministry said British company GW Pharmaceuticals PLC, which sells
a marijuana-based oral medicine in Canada, has withdrawn from the
Dutch approval process.

The centrist government agreed as part of its coalition pact not to
change country's famed tolerance policy on unregulated marijuana,
which is rife with contradictions.

Advocates say full legalization would lead to better labeling of the
plant's chemical contents.

And while coffee shops openly sell marijuana and hash, they have no
way to legally source their products. Many are supplied by
mini-plantations hidden in residential areas, causing a fire hazard.
Police are called in to dismantle them on a daily basis.

Amsterdam benefits from tourists who come to smoke marijuana, but the
city's emergency services are taxed by smokers who experience panic
attacks after trying unexpectedly strong weed.

Border towns suffer problems from "drug tourists" who travel from
neighboring Germany and Belgium and nearby France to stock up on weed.

Under the previous conservative government, parliament was dissuaded
from outright legalization by fears that it would lead to a
confrontation with the European Union.

According to data compiled by the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute for
Mental Health and Addiction, after 30 years of the Dutch tolerance
policy, usage rates here are somewhere in the middle of international
norms -- above those in Germany and the Scandinavian countries, but
below those of France, Britain and the United States.

Reviewing recent scientific studies, the institute warns users "there
are indications that there is a relationship between cannabis use and
the development of psychological problems such as schizophrenia and
depression."