MAKING CANADA A LEADER IN MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Stephen Harper has decided to turn marijuana law reform into a mere
pipe-dream for 3 million pot-smoking Canadians. This is a tragic
mistake: Only in the world of science fiction can a plant become
public enemy number one. But the oracle has now spoken, and Canadians
will probably have to endure another decade of a misguided drug
strategy that converts cannabis consumers into common criminals.

Fortunately, however, Harper's regressive approach to cannabis
prohibition should have no impact on the increasing number of
Canadians who rely upon marijuana for medical purposes. In 2000, the
Ontario Court of Appeal declared that seriously ill Canadians have a
constitutional right to choose marijuana as medicine. To discharge
this constitutional obligation, Health Canada has been compelled to
manage and maintain a program that exempts legitimate medical use
from the criminal law.

Contrary to the views of ill-informed detractors, medical marijuana
use is not simply a reflection of the obvious fact that intoxicating
substances can make sick people feel temporarily better. The
cannabinoids present in marijuana plants not only lead to giggles and
a deep appreciation of Pink Floyd; these unique chemical compounds
can control and curb nausea, neuropathic pain, spasticity and
inflammation. As an appetite stimulant, marijuana can combat the
ravages of the wasting syndrome that plagues many patients undergoing
chemotherapy and HIV/AIDS antiretroviral treatment.

To date, the medical applications of cannabis have related to symptom
control and not curative properties. But last year there was much
excitement when Spanish and Israeli scientists both discovered that a
synthetic cannabinoid can actually shrink cancerous tumours.

The problem with marijuana as medicine is the paucity of clinical
research. We know pot works and we know it has a high margin of
safety, but we don't really know how it works. In the past century,
governments funded endless research in the attempt to prove that
marijuana is sufficiently harmful to warrant criminal intervention,
but these same governments turned a blind eye to any research into
medical benefits. Thousands of years of medical use of marijuana was
disregarded, or even hidden, in the futile effort to convince people
that marijuana was a soul-destroying narcotic.

In the process of re-writing history, governments exposed millions of
patients to needless suffering.

Governments simply assumed that Big Pharma would eventually develop
synthetic products that would have greater therapeutic efficacy than
marijuana. But with the recall of highly-touted painkillers such as
Vioxx and Celebrex, one can now see it is a mistake to rely upon
laboratory creations and ignore the benefits of a naturally occurring
plant that has been used for medicine since 3000 B.C.

We need to understand marijuana's mechanism of action in order to
develop medical products that are effective and safe. Many patients
will not tolerate smoking joints as a medical treatment. New delivery
systems must be developed.

For this reason, I became involved in founding Canada's first
publicly traded company dedicated to research and development with
marijuana -- Cannasat Therapeutics. Despite my general suspicion of
big business, I even became a shareholder.

My interest in corporate pot has little to do with the widely-shared
belief that cannabinoid medicines are destined to become the
lucrative, blockbuster drugs of the 21st century. Rather, I know it
will take the resources of big business to unravel the mysteries of
marijuana's valuable medical applications in the same way that many
of our hospitals needed to be built on a foundation of corporate donations.

Canada is the ideal jurisdiction for advancing cannabinoid research,
as we are the only country in the world where patients have a
constitutional right to use marijuana as medicine, and where the
government has a constitutional obligation to produce this medicine
or to facilitate reasonable access through other channels.

Some of the grassroots constituency of pot smokers, whose interests I
have represented over the years, have accused me of being a sell-out
for introducing the business community to a plant adored and
worshipped by the counterculture. Of course, I still remain committed
to liberating the plant from the clutches of criminal law control --
but that is an entirely different issue from the alleviation of pain
and suffering. As Moses Znaimer, Chairman of Cannasat Therapeutics,
recently noted: "This is not about fun -- it is about function."

It takes little creativity and initiative to have fun with pot, but
it will take years of clinical testing and millions of dollars to
develop cannabinoid products that help seriously ill medical
patients. It's not hard to act like Cheech and Chong, but it takes
lots of effort to become the next Banting and Best.

Finally, the world has woken up to the therapeutic potential of
cannabis. Research conducted by Cannasat, other pharmaceutical
companies and academic institutions will transform the nature of our
pharmacopoeia. Move over Gravol, and make way for ganja.