CANADA PLANS TO OFFER MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN BC PHARMACIES

BUT MOVE WON'T HEAL GOVERNMENT POT PROGRAM'S WOES, ACTIVISTS SAY

Health Canada confirmed this week that it has a proposal under
development to undertake a pilot program where marijuana grown under
government contract will be made available through pharmacies to
medical marijuana users registered with Health Canada. The move,
which, according to press reports, will begin in British Columbia,
will make Canada only the second country to provide the herb at the
drugstore. The Netherlands began making medical marijuana available
through pharmacies last year
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/301/netherlands.shtml).

But despite a story that appeared in the press agency Canadian Press
on Monday saying that British Columbia would be the site of the first
pilot program, Health Canada spokesperson Catherine Saunders told
DRCNet Thursday she couldn't confirm that because "all the details
haven't been worked out." Actual implementation of a pilot program is
"months away, at best," she said.

"We are examining a range of changes to the medical marijuana access
regulations, and one proposed change is to include allowing patients
to obtain it through Canadian pharmacies," Saunders said. "If the
regulatory changes were made so that pharmacists had the authority to
dispense marijuana, then we could move forward. What needs to happen
first is that we have to submit proposed amendments to the regulations
for approval by publishing them in the Canada Gazette in May and have
them approved in the fall. After the regulatory changes are made, over
the next few months Health Canada will be working with pharmacists and
their associations, as well as provincial and local regulatory
authorities on how to implement a program. It will be some months
before anything concrete is developed," she cautioned.

While activists and medical marijuana patients and advocates welcomed
any loosening of what they see as Health Canada's cumbersome and
bureaucratized medical marijuana program, they said the proposal does
not address broader complaints they have with the program. Health
Canada has not supported medical marijuana, but was forced to take it
up because of court rulings that threatened to undo Canada's marijuana
possession laws if the government did not act to make marijuana
available to patients who need it.

Only some 700 people nationwide have undergone the process of becoming
a Health Canada-certified medical marijuana patient, while Health
Canada estimates the number of Canadian medical marijuana users at
400,000. That number may be low. In the Canadian Press article on
Monday, Health Canada pharmacist consultant Robin O'Brien estimated
the number of medical marijuana users in British Columbia alone at
290,000.

"It's a step sideways," said Tim Meehan of Ontario Consumers for Safe
Access to Recreational Cannabis (http://www.ocsarc.org). "The
government may be trying to say that you can just go down and get it
from your pharmacist, but it is not addressing the fundamental issue
that the product is crap," he told DRCNet. "You can go online to one
of Canada's existing compassion clubs and order far better stuff than
Health Canada offers -- several have mail order services," he pointed
out.

Indeed, the marijuana produced under a $5 million dollar contract with
Prairie Plant Systems of Flin Flon, Manitoba, for use in the Health
Canada medical marijuana program, is widely scorned. "I'm a recipient
of the government cannabis and I can't tell you how bad it is," said
Philippe Lucas, who is director of Canadians for Safe Access
(http://www.safeaccess.ca), a spin-off of its sister organization to
the south, as well as the communications director for DrugSense
(http://www.drugsense.org). "It's horrible stuff. It's not as strong
as the government claims, and it's high in heavy metals. I couldn't
sell this on the street, let alone at my compassion club. That the
government is trying to make this stuff more widely available is a
form of fraud," Lucas told DRCNet. "I would support this if they
allowed multiple strains to be grown in a safe, organic manner by
people with experience growing medical marijuana."

"That criticism is based on personal perceptions, not anything
inherent in the actual product," retorted Health Canada's Saunders.
"But we are attentive to the feedback we've received about Prairie
Plant Systems, and we are exploring ways of modifying the manner in
which it is physically prepared. We're hoping we can make some changes
to address those comments."

"Personal perception?" scoffed Lucas. "They say it has 10% THC, but
our lab results this week showed it at 6%, and last week the sample
came in at 5.1%." Still, even Lucas conceded that getting medical
marijuana into pharmacies is a step in the right direction. "Some
aspects of this are quite good," he said. "It is good to see BC
pharmacists recognizing the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis.
Their enthusiasm for the pilot program is telling."

For Brian Taylor of Cannabis Health magazine (http://www.cannabishealth.com),
who along with Lucas was one of a handful of medical marijuana
advocates invited to meet with Health Canada to discuss revision of
the regulations last month, the key issue is that of supply. "These
new regulations that are coming down will basically open the door to
thousands of new patients via distribution through pharmacies," he
told DRCNet. "Patients should be able to use their patient card and
get their cannabis. But what we've seen in Holland is that patients
are turning away from the pharmacies because of the cost. We need to
have a system where patients can get cannabis medicine that is safe,
affordable, and that comes in different varieties," he said. "Health
Canada is only planning one more big contract for one more strain."

Lucas pointed out that the pilot program will expend a lot of dollars
to reach very few people. "Right now there are 115 exemptees in
British Columbia. On average, about 10% of the people in the
government program ask the government to be their supplier, whereas
about 50% currently get it through the compassion clubs. This will
literally affect about a dozen people, and we will spend a million
dollars to do it. It's disturbing to see our tax money spent this way
when we could just let the clubs do it," he said.

"We should be exploring the licensing and registration of the
organizations that have done so much more to help people on this than
the federal government -- the compassion clubs," said Lucas. "When we
met with the heads of the Office of Medical Cannabis Access we asked
them if they saw a place for the clubs, and they said no. They claimed
international treaties blocked that, but I read those treaties as
excluding medicinal distribution from their purview."

Health Canada doesn't see it that way. "That is not so," said Saunders
when confronted with Lucas' interpretation of the international drug
treaties. "We have an international obligation to remain committed to
the regulation of controlled substances. The treaties would frown on
our having an open market in medical marijuana. That's why in the
regulations you can only grow for one person -- to limit the
possibility of diversion."

Still, said Saunders, Health Canada is committed to working with all
the stakeholders on this issue, including people currently authorized
to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Brian Taylor has a better idea. "The ideal solution is end
prohibition," he said. "In the short term, we don't need bad
government cannabis in pharmacies when we have community-based
cooperatives -- the compassion clubs -- currently serving many, many
more people than Health Canada with better quality and a higher
satisfaction level."

So, medical marijuana will soon be coming to a Canadian pharmacy near
you. Too bad it's going to be crappy weed. And too bad the people who
know how to grow the good stuff and get it to patients are being cut
out.