SIMPLE SOLUTION TO MEDICAL POT DISTRIBUTION

Health Canada Has Made Process Virtually Unworkable, but Pharmacies
Could Be the Answer

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that there's a simple
way to do things and a complex one. And the simple way is usually,
though not always, better.

But that's not the way Health Canada does things. In fact, it's made
the distribution of medical marijuana in B.C. so complicated it's
become virtually unworkable - as reporter Kent Spencer made clear in
Monday's Province.

The process people in pain have to go through to obtain their doctor's
support and get the pot they say they need is so tedious and
time-consuming that many fall back on black-market distribution
systems, often controlled by violent drug gangs.

Second, the dividing line between legal and illegal grow operations is
blurred. Which is why grow-rip artists increasingly target both, and
why police have a hard time telling the victims from the villains.

It's why so many Lower Mainland communities continue to be plagued by
unscrupulous folks who use their licence to grow medical marijuana as
a cover for criminal activities. And Health Canada rarely does
inspections.

It's an all-around bad trip. But there is a simple solution, which is
to have medical pot sold through B.C.'s large network of community
drugstores.

As Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz noted in Spencer's article, that's
the way we already sell drugs in this province: "I'd like to see
medical marijuana treated like other drugs dispensed by a pharmacy."

Cannabis Culture CEO Jodie Emery, wife of jailed pot activist Marc
Emery, agrees that's what should be done.

"If there's anything we can do to provide more and safer access, I'm
totally for it," she told me Tuesday, adding there are many different
ways pot could be sold in pharmacies, from capsules to tinctures.

This is not a new idea. The Dutch do it. And Health Canada has long
envisaged that government-certified marijuana be distributed through
pharmacies. Indeed, in 2005, it was reported to be setting up a pilot
project in B.C. to test it.

It's unclear what happened to that project. And B.C. Pharmacy
Association CEO Marnie Mitchell declined to comment Tuesday. But one
of the underlying issues appears to be the inability of pharmaceutical
firms to secure a patent for the drug.

Surely, though, this shouldn't be a major impediment. After all, we're
not taking about rocket science or a nuclear meltdown.

Not that there wouldn't be problems. Indeed, I suspect Lower Mainland
pharmacies would have to take as stringent security measures against
marijuana thieves as they do against those who want to steal, say, the
painkiller OxyContin.

The issue here is not whether or not the public supports the use of
marijuana for medical purposes. That's already been decided by our
political masters in Ottawa - without, in my view, thinking it through
properly.

No, this is about the best way to implement the current
medical-marijuana laws. And it should not be complex: Do it through
pharmacies where the quality of the drug can be guaranteed and its
distribution controlled.

As home-improvement maestro Shell Busey would say, it's just that
easy.