POT & POLITICS

Ten Years After Canada First Introduced Regulations Governing The Use
Of Medical Marijuana, The Conservative Government Is Bringing In Major
Changes To The Program. But As Glen Mcgregor Writes, Health Canada's
Proposals, As Well As The Tories' New Crime Legislation, Have Cast A
Shadow Over The Future Of The Program - And The Patients Who Say The
Drug Has Changed Their Lives

Eighteen-year-old Adam Greenblatt was lying in bed one morning when
his mother burst into his room and demanded to know if he had any drugs.

Greenblatt, who had been busted for possession while smoking up with
some friends outside his high school in suburban Toronto, thought his
mom was hassling him about pot again.

But this time was different. Adam's father wanted to give marijuana a
try, his mother said. Get out your dope, she told him.

Michael Greenblatt, a dentist, had suffered from multiple sclerosis
since his late 30s. The neurological condition left him with a twisted
arm and unable to practise dentistry.

After 20 years of taking toxic pharmaceuticals that were less and less
effective at controlling his spasms and nausea, he was desperate for
relief.

"I was in so much pain I had to try something else," he
recalls.

He had never tried pot, even in high school or university in the
1960s, and didn't want to start by smoking. Adam sautA(c)ed some
cannabis in butter for him and smeared it on a sandwich.

Later that day, Adam's mom called him on his cellphone and told him to
come home. "Your father wants the joint," she told him.

Sitting around the kitchen table, Adam showed his father how to smoke
and inhale marijuana.

"It was remarkable," Adam says. "It was probably the first time ever
I'd seen my dad smile and be painfree."

Today, Michael Greenblatt is one of more than 5,000 authorized
marijuana users in Canada. His son is his designated grower, providing
him with about 10 grams a day in edible form.

For Adam, the profound effect the cannabis had on his father's
symptoms was eye-opening. He went on to run as a candidate for the
Marijuana Party and work in a Montreal "compassion club," clinics that
operate in a legal grey zone by providing marijuana to sick people
outside the Health Canada program.

Greenblatt left the clinic shortly before it was raided by
police.

He now runs his own medical marijuana dispensary in Montreal to help
other patients and advocates through the Canadian Association of
Medical Cannabis Dispenseries.

Greenblatt sells medical cannabis products to about 65 customers, both
drop-in and mail order.

Today, with the Conservative government bringing in new regulations
governing the use of medical marijuana, the future of operations like
Greenblatt's is uncertain.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says the changes to the Marihuana
Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) are intended to weigh the needs of
patients with concerns that home-grow operations are dangerous to
health and safety.

"We have heard complaints and concerns from many fire departments and
many mayors," she told the Citizen.

Aglukkaq says she is also concerned about reports of criminal activity
within the medical marijuana program.

"There are people out there who are abusing this program,
unfortunately, for illegal activities," she said. "You see that on the
news on a regular basis - houses in a very nice neighbourhood being
used to grow marijuana."

But Aglukkaq insists there is no link between changes to the medical
marijuana program and the Tories omnibus crime legislation, which was
passed this week in the Commons and also casts a shadow on the
program's future.

The toughening of drug trafficking laws means that anyone caught
sharing or selling marijuana will face mandatory jail sentences. No
longer will judges have the discretion to waive a sentence for pot
providers who, like Greenblatt and his growers, offer the product to
help the sick. If charged and convicted of trafficking, they will do
jail time - at least six months.

Libby Davies, the NDP health critic, wonders if the government's
proposed changes to the regulations aren't rooted in a deeper
suspicion about marijuana. She notes that the previous Liberal
government only began authorizing medical marijuana use under the
force of a court decision.

"One has to be skeptical about their reasons," she said. "I know they
don't like this program. My fear is they will unload it because they
don't want to deal with it politically."

Health Canada is currently conducting consultations with stakeholders
on the proposed changes to the regulations.

If the new rules are adopted, no longer will patients be able to
legally grow pot at home or have someone grow it for them.

Under the current system, approved patients can produce their own
marijuana plants or designate a person they know to grow it for them.

Data obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information Act
shows that, between 2001 and 2007, about 55 per cent of approved MMAR
patients were licensed to grow and another nine per cent could use
designated growers.

For these patients, the incentive to grow is both one of cost - done
properly it can be cheaper than the $5 plus taxes per gram for Health
Canada's pot - and of quality. Many complain that Health Canada's
contracted producer, Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba, produces only
one strain of cannabis and it has a lower content of active
ingredients. Different strains of cannabis are better for treating
different diseases, activists contend.

Under the proposed regulations, Health Canada would license private
growers to provide marijuana products by mail-order to approved patients.

"We want to look at ways to see how do we treat this like any other
prescription drug where a doctor prescribes a prescription and you go
to a known agency to access this program," Aglukkaq says. "There is a
reliable source and, at the same time, the product is safe."

But still unclear is who would qualify for growing licences, or
whether there would be a variety of products available to patients.
Many of the socalled compassion clubs that provide marijuana to sick
people outside the Health Canada program would like to be approved.
They are encouraged they were included in consultations on the new
rules, but worry that the government will create regulatory blocks on
security grounds, or make the cost of getting a licence unviable. That
would allow only a small number of big companies the right to grow and
sell legally.

The prohibition on growing is just one in a basket of changes that
Health Canada has suggested making to the medical marijuana program as
it moves into its second decade.

The regulations would also relieve Health Canada bureaucrats of the
responsibility for approving applications that have already been
signed off by doctors. The two-step process of asking a doctor before
applying to the MMAR program would end and doctors alone would decide
whether to issue the licence.

Marijuana advocates are generally supportive of this change but warn
it will do nothing to overcome the major obstacle for patients: few
doctors are agreeing to sign the papers as the Canadian Medical
Association does not support the program. Patients still must
doctor-shop to find a marijuana-friendly physician, with some even
paying $400 or more to visit clinics specializing in medical marijuana
referrals. Others go to compassion clubs if there are any nearby, or
instead buy marijuana illegally "on the street."

Aglukkaq says solving this problem will require better research and
more consultations with the CMA and provincial health ministries.

That's not good enough for FranA?ois Arcand, an Ottawa medicinal
marijuana patient who is frustrated by the CMA's reticence to let
doctors prescribe the drug.

"It's a medication that has so much potential, but it's marijuana, so
it's 'shhhhh'," he says.

Arcand was studying civil law at the University of Ottawa in 1989 when
he was struck by a brain hemorrhage. Doctors told him he had a
pear-sized arterial venous malformation in his head.

After surgery, he was left with little feeling on one side of his body
and suffered from near-constant seizures. Pharmaceutical drugs reduced
the number of seizures, but sapped his appetite and left him in a
mental fog. His weight loss and physical decline was so obvious that
some people asked him if he had HIV or AIDS.

Sick of watching him waste away, Arcand's brother bought some
marijuana for him. The drug was transformative. It dramatically cut
down on his seizures, restored his appetite, let him sleep at night
and helped him regain some movement in his right arm.

But Arcand couldn't get his doctor to agree to enrol him in the Health
Canada program.

"I was told, 'Nope, the CMA does not allow us to give it.'
"

Instead, he began buying it illegally. "I knew a guy who knew a guy,"
he says.

Having to resort to a criminal activity did not sit well with someone
who had once planned on becoming a Crown prosecutor.

It took him seven years to find a vascular neurologist who would agree
to sign the Health Canada forms. Now he consumes his cannabis in the
form of a tincture, with the pot supplied by Greenblatt's girlfriend,
his designated grower.

"I blame the CMA. They're the ones who tell their doctors you don't
have a right to give a prescription," Arcand says.

"There's so many people this could help without the stigma of getting
high all the time."

[sidebar]

ABOUT THIS SERIES

Stories in the series are based on electronic data obtained from
Health Canada through the Access to Information Act.

In 2007, the Citizen requested a full list of applications made for
medical marijuana, with the names and addresses of the patients
removed, including medical conditions, application status and the
first three characters of the applicants' postal codes. No personal
information that could identify the applicant was requested.

Health Canada initially cited privacy concerns and refused to release
the records. The Citizen complained to the Information Commissioner of
Canada. After her office launched an investigation, Health Canada
finally agreed to release the data this fall.

The department provided record-level data that showed applications to
the program from 2001 to 2007.

This week, the department also provided a more recent data set that
spans 2007 to October 2011. It contains information that is similar
but not identical to the previously released data. Where possible, the
most recent data have been used in these stories.

Today

The data: What the numbers tell us about who uses the drug and how
accessible it is The politics: Health Canada's proposed changes to the
program have cast a shadow over its future

Tomorrow

The patients: Some experts may be skeptical about marijuana's
effectiveness, but patients who use it have no doubts

Monday

The science: What researchers know about the effectiveness and safety
of medicinal marijuana The dosage: How much patients use, and how they
use it

Tuesday

The military: The contentious issue of using marijuana to treat
posttraumatic stress disorder

Wednesday

The law: Many municipalities say the program is rife with abuse and
it's time to crack down

Online

To find out more about who is using Canada's medical marijuana
program, go to ottawacitizen.com/ medicalmarijuana to use our map and
database. Search by medical condition, province, postal code, dosages
and doctor specialty to find out who is using the drug, and why. Also,
see a map showing where licensees live around the country.

[sidebar]

Timeline for medical marijuana in Canada

1990S

The seriously ill and dying begin fighting for a legal exemption to
the criminal law, demanding the right to obtain medicinal pain relief
though marijuana without fear of prosecution.

Litigation continues. Numerous cases are before the courts as patients
seek easier access to medical marijuana.

July: Medical marijuana hits the Canadian legal radar after Ontario Court of
Appeal issues the first ruling linking the constitutional validity of the
criminal law to the existence of a medical exemption protecting patients'
rights.

July: Health Canada introduces Marihuana Medical Access Regulations, and
Canada became the second country in the world with a government-run cannabis
health program. Regulations create an exemption to the criminal law allowing
approved patients to possess and grow their own cannabis, as well as
gardeners to grow pot for approved patients. Prairie Plant Systems of
Saskatoon is given a contract to grow pot to sell to qualified patients.

2002-04 Jean ChrA(c)tien's Liberal government introduces a bill that
would have decriminalized the possession for personal use of small
amounts of cannabis. The bill looked likely to pass into law, but it
died when Parliament was prorogued.

January: In Sfetkopoulos v. Canada, the Federal Court strikes down the
regulation prohibiting a producer from growing for more than one person.

August: Federal Court of Appeal affirms Sfetkopoulos, but tight growing
regulations remain, with farms and large-scale production outlawed.

April: Ontario Superior Court Justice Donald Taliano concludes that
legitimately sick people are not able to access medical marijuana through
appropriate means and must resort to compassion clubs or the street corner,
risking arrest and criminal charges. Warns that unless the government
addresses the legislative flaws within three months, the criminal law would
be struck down. The federal government appeals the ruling.

June: Government of Canada announces it is considering improvements to the
Marihuana Medical Access Regulations program to reduce the risk of abuse and
exploitation by criminal elements.