HIDDEN DISPENSARY HELPING TO FILL NEED

The first thing patients get in the vestibule of a hidden Montreal
medical marijuana centre is a wail-tagging welcome from a rescue
border collie called Maybe.

The inner sanctum - kitchen with stainless steel appliances and banner
featuring a dove carrying a marijuana leaf - has a faint odour of pot.

The baking menu on this day includes pumpkin honey cannabis cake using
marijuana-infused olive oil.

Welcome to a reincarnation of the Montreal compassion club, which has
rejected "compassion" in favour of "dispensary" because patients have
a right to medication, says Adam Greenblatt, head of the Montreal
Medical Cannabis Access Society.

"We started as a refugee dispensary - shortly after the raids," says
Greenblatt, whose association operates the dispensary.

It's among 30 such dispensaries across Canada with the Canadian
Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, and serving about 30,000
critically or chronically ill patients.

"We don't take sworn oaths from notaries about pain," said Greenblatt,
referring to to a Lachine compassion club that police busted last year
for trafficking marijuana.

Promoted as a harm-reduction alternative to smoking pot, the kitchen
produces a range of edibles, extracts and tinctures, including
pot-infused coconut oil and butter, brownies, cookies and granola
bars, and it's run in part by patient volunteers.

An authorized grower for his father, who has multiple sclerosis,
Greenblatt's association recently manned a kiosk on medical marijuana
at a Montreal family medicine forum, right next to the Health Canada
booth promoting changes to the marijuana program.

"We're getting more referrals through physicians than patients,"
Greenblatt says. "Once we've verified the paper work, we tell the
patient where we are."

Seeking input from stakeholders on improving its Marijuana Medical
Access Program, Ottawa turned to compassion clubs whose activities
predate the Health Canada program.

"We're not legal, yet they are seeking our advice about the reforms,"
says Greenblatt, whose submission calls for community-based resource
centres for patients and caregivers, much like the compassion clubs
closed in the raids.

Despite the legal grey zone, the centre is insured as a "medical
marijuana dispensary" and it provides edible cannabis products for
about 2,000 patients, mostly in Quebec and Ontario, plus serves about
50 patients locally.

Edibles are sent in vacuum-packed plastic bags labelled according to
dosage and particular strain of cannabis.

If the centre gets a production licence under the new rules, "than we
will in fact be entirely legal," Greenblatt said.

Among the centre's "refugees" is Yves, 56, who is on a disability
pension. He has a congenital intestinal malformation and Crohn's
disease. Pot stopped his stomach cramps, inflammation and bleeds, and
helps prevents emergency trips to the hospital, Yves says in a
telephone interview.

His health was in bad shape when someone referred him to Greenblatt.
"I wanted to go to the (McGill) pain clinic, but it takes four years
to get a rendez-vous. I was living in a state of fear" after the raids
last year.

"They took me in hand," he says of the dispensary, which tweaked his
dose and put Yves in touch with an Ontario doctor who signed the
Health Canada form for a $200 fee.

"Now I forget that I'm sick sometimes," says Yves, who volunteers in
the kitchen because he feels it's important to give back to society.

Yves figures he has saved Quebec taxpayers thousands of dollars by
using medical marijuana "instead of pills and hospitals."

Greenblatt placed three types of marijuana in bowls next to the Health
Canada product mailed to patients in gold-coloured bags. He knows his
marijuana strains, Cannabis sativa and indica, and an estimated 60
cannabinoids (active ingredient in marijuana) and their spectrum of
effects.

"Doctors were coming to us in the forum because they don't know what
to do for their patients," says Greenblatt, who bases his knowledge on
a decade of experience with dozens of patients.

The dispensary promotes education on effective cannabis use - for
example, costeffective vaporizers where none of the active ingredients
go up in smoke.

For information on the dispensary, go to cannabisaccess.ca