LICENSING OPEN TO ABUSE: OTTAWA

Government working to tighten system, including more education for
doctors

Ottawa - Canada's medical marijuana licensing system is vulnerable to
abuse and needs to be tightened, the health ministry says after data
emerged this week revealing a surge in possibly fraudulent
applications.

"We're aware there are opportunities and risks of the system being
abused, which is why we are working to tighten the system," Steve
Outhouse, a representative of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, said on
Friday.

Outhouse was speaking in response to Postmedia's recent series looking
at medical marijuana licensing and use in Canada. The series was based
on electronic data obtained from Health Canada through the Access to
Information Act.

The figures showed, for example, that between 2008 and 2010
applications to Health Canada for medical marijuana based on severe
arthritis claims jumped 2,400 per cent.

There are two main changes Aglukkaq has proposed to prevent
exploitation of the government's Marijuana Medical Access
Regulations.

They include better educating doctors on how to prescribe medical
marijuana and eliminating the right of patients to be granted a
licence to grow in their homes, he said.

"We want to be able to get more information to doctors, because often
doctors don't have all the information they need to make an informed
decision as to whether or not to prescribe," said Outhouse.

"The other thing we're proposing is that people wouldn't grow in
homes. That it would be available through a centralized location,
whatever company would grow it, to treat it as much as any other drug."

Outhouse said the minister is concerned about the safety risks
involved with allowing people to grow marijuana in their home.

He said it's also difficult to regulate plant growth in homes, and
there is a risk of people growing more marijuana than they are permitted.

"If we can reduce and eliminate that at the home level, then a lot of
these issues will be dealt with," said Outhouse.

However, under the proposed changes, Health Canada wants to remove
itself as the ultimate arbiter in approving or rejecting applications
to possess marijuana for medical reasons. Instead, doctors alone would
sign off on requests.

The nation's largest doctors' group - the Canadian Medical Association
- - has said the proposals would put even greater pressure on doctors to
control access to a largely untested and unregulated substance, a drug
that hasn't gone through the normal regulatory review process. The CMA
fears the changes would essentially offload all responsibility for
using and monitoring marijuana to the doctors who signs an
authorization.

Health Canada is appointing an advisory committee that will be charged
with assembling current information on the use of marijuana for
medical purposes.

Outhouse expects the regulations to be finalized in 2012.