WIDE RANGE OF PATIENTS FIND SOME RELIEF IN POT

Margaret Marceniuk inhales her medical marijuana through a
pharmaceutical puffer and a head-shop pipe.

Tamara Cartwright vaporizes her pot with a machine called a Volcano,
then inhales three to four bags of the vapour while locked away in her
bedroom, away from her toddler.

Ian Layfield in Victoria swallows cannabis-infused oil capsules he
makes himself, frying olive oil with pot leaves, then straining it
with cheese cloth and pouring it into gel caps. He also mixes cannabis
into a topical cream he rubs into his left foot and ankle, which was
crushed in October 2006 after being rolled over by a grader.

Todd Kaighin, an HIV patient in downtown Toronto, largely smokes
traditional joints, while Janice Cyre outside Edmonton presses her
marijuana leaves into steeped tea. Many users also nibble on the odd
brownie or cookie baked with cannabis leaves, pot-infused oil or
canna-butter.

All have their federal licences to legally take medical marijuana to
help dull pain, boost appetite and curtail nausea or diarrhea
associated with multiple sclerosis, colitis, severe arthritis, HIV or
fibromyalgia. But all laugh disdainfully at the dried marijuana grown
by the federal government in a mine in Manitoba, describing it as
"dust" or "catnip in a bag" that has little therapeutic benefit and
brings headaches.

They either buy their medical pot illegally through compassion clubs
or legally grow their own plants in their basements, with some
occasionally and reluctantly forced to buy from street dealers when
their supply runs low.

Marceniuk, who recently moved about 80 kilometres west from Edmonton
to Lake Isle, Alta., has never smoked cigarettes and didn't rebel as a
teenager by getting high on pot.

She refused to try medical marijuana for her constant pain while
working as a school teacher and wasn't keen on using it while her two
sons were still living at home.

But since she's been on disability for seven years, Marceniuk has
slowly incorporated marijuana into her daily routine to help her with
the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis. She's one of 108 with
the disease in Alberta - 480 across Canada - who can legally use
marijuana under Health Canada's medical marijuana program, according
to 2001 to 2007 data. More multiple sclerosis patients are allowed to
use medical marijuana than any other patient group in Alberta.

Diagnosed with MS at age 28, Marceniuk has experienced blindness,
migraines, balance issues, chronic pain and fatigue. At 55,
conventional medications only hold the pain at bay for so long.

"I have breakthrough pain," said Marceniuk, who is currently on 13
different medications, including one conventional pain killer. About
seven years ago, she started using marijuana, first with Sativex, a
legal synthetic marijuana she inhales in a puffer form similar to an
inhaler for asthmatic patients.

Her doctor prescribes it like any other pharmaceutical and doesn't
have to apply to Health Canada for a medical marijuana licence or use
triplicate subscriptions, which are needed for opiates and narcotics
such as morphine that have the potential for misuse or abuse. A vial
of Sativex lasts about one month for Marceniuk, who inhales four puffs
for each daily treatment. Three to four hours later, the associated
high brings relief and dulls the pain.

But the Sativex didn't seem to help that much until Marceniuk began
smoking dried marijuana in a pipe, about once a week. The relief from
smoking was almost immediate, and the doctor believes the smoked leaf
opened pathways that allowed the synthetic compound to work better.

"It doesn't get rid of the pain completely. As my son says, it makes
me not care about the pain," she said. "It helps me get through the
pain."

Marceniuk can legally take both forms of marijuana, since she has
received approval from the federal government, but it took her two
years to find a doctor willing to spend the time to fill out the
lengthy forms for a licence. In January 2010, figures from Health
Canada suggested 153 Alberta physicians supported marijuana
prescriptions, compared to 685 in British Columbia and 939 in Ontario.

Marceniuk only smokes her pipe at home, occasionally supplementing
with cannabis-infused brownies made with special oil. When out with
friends, she takes Sativex.

She purchases her pot illegally from a compassion house in Vancouver
she visits once or twice a year.

"The stuff coming from the government is literally just dust,"
Marceniuk said. "I'm not impressed by it."

Nor are others, who say when the government harvests its crop, workers
separate the cannabis leaves and buds from the crystals, the
snowflake-like compounds that grow on the bud and contain most of the
active ingredient called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. The extracted
THC is then made into a tincture or liquid form, and sprayed back onto
the plant so that the THC levels are standard in all the product, at
about 12.5 per cent, according to the Health Canada website. But
critics say tests have shown levels far lower, at six per cent. They
suggest variety in strength and plant types is important for patients
with different medical needs.

But the guesswork is part of what troubles physicians like Edmonton's
Dr. Rufus Scrimger, who has worked as an oncologist for 25 years.
Scrimger said he doesn't feel comfortable prescribing medical
marijuana for his cancer patients because doctors are given no
training to understand the different strains, strengths or types of
marijuana they should be prescribing for each ailment.

"There's not a lot of good medical data out there to support its use,
evidence that says it's better than all the other medications that we
have available to us for nausea or pain," said Scrimger, the Alberta
Medical Association's section head for oncology.

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MEDICAL MARIJUANA BY THE NUMBERS

4,884 - Number of Canadians authorized to possess marijuana (as of
January 2010)

10 - Age of the youngest patient, a boy with epilepsy, living in
Quebec's Beauce region, authorized for one gram per day, referred by a
pediatrician.

90 - Age of oldest patient, a man in downtown Vancouver with severe
arthritis, authorized to consume five grams daily, referred by a
general practitioner.

56 - Largest allowed dosage, in grams per day. It was approved for a
45-year-old man with spinal cord injury and disease, living near
Kelowna, B.C.

Top medical reasons for marijuana applications, 2007-2011

Severe arthritis......... 7,445

Other (Category 2)*... 4,032

Chronic pain.............. 2,194

Spinal cord injury....... 2,130

Spinal cord disease.... 1,583

Cancer....................... 1,387

Multiple sclerosis....... 1,254

AIDS, HIV infection..... 1,130

Epilepsy........................ 394

Hepatitis B or C............ 276

* Category 2 patients have debilitating symptoms of medical conditions
not covered by Category 1 for which conventional treatments are
considered ineffective. These applications require an assessment by a
specialist. Category 1 patients are authorized to possess marijuana to
treat symptoms of cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy seizures, spinal cord
injury or disease, and severe arthritis.