MEDICAL POT APPLICATIONS CITING ARTHRITIS TAKE A DRAMATIC JUMP

From 2008 to 2010, Number Citing the Condition to Use Marijuana Up 2,400%

The federal government has seen a staggering increase in the number
of requests for medical marijuana authorizations from applicants
claiming they have severe arthritis to legally obtain the drug.

Applications to Health Canada based on severe arthritis claims jumped
2,400% between 2008 and 2010, far outstripping the number of claims
for cancer, HIV/AIDS and other serious diseases, an Ottawa Citizen
analysis has found.

The spike in arthritis claims was part of an overall rise in
applications over the past three years, as more private clinics
specializing in marijuana began referring patients to pot-friendly
doctors willing to sign their forms.

But unless there has been an enormous, undocumented surge in
arthritis rates in Canada over the past three years, the data
suggests that patients or their doctors may be gaming the
government's rules to obtain medical marijuana more easily.

Arthritis was listed as the reason for 40% of all applications under
the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations received so far in 2011.
That was double the rate seen in 2008, according to electronic
records released to the Citizen under the Access to Infor-mation Act.

Severe arthritis is one of the Category 1 illnesses that require
patients to obtain the signature of just a single doctor under Health
Canada rules. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS infections and
spinal cord injuries and disease and are also listed in Category 1,
but often have more obvious visible symptoms than arthritis.

Patients with other Category 2 illnesses such as hepatitis, glaucoma
or ulcerative colitis must go through the additional step of getting
a specialist to sign their applications, a process that can take many
months and does not always succeed.

Some marijuana advocates believe that patients are asking doctors to
sign off on the faster Category 1 condition of severe arthritis to
speed their applications.

"I think a lot of people are applying under arthritis even if they
may have a different condition," says Scott Gilbert, who runs the
Hamilton Medical Marijuana Centre. "They are going with whatever is
the easier one to get approved on."

Although a patient might otherwise qualify for authorization based on
a Category 2 illness, a savvy doctor familiar with the MMAR program
might ask if the patient also has arthritis, too.

Health Canada is conducting a review of MMAR and plans to overhaul
the way the program works, in part by transferring more authority to
doctors. The department says it is required to approve applications
that have been signed by a doctor and meet the conditions of the
MMAR. It has noticed the sharp increase in marijuana applications but
doesn't know why, exactly, the numbers are rising so sharply.