PHARMACIES MAY START STOCKING MARIJUANA

OTTAWA -- Health Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana
available in pharmacies, a move that could rapidly boost the number of
registered medical users.

Officials are organizing a pilot project in British Columbia, modelled
on a year-old program in the Netherlands, that would allow medical
users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore.

Currently, there are 78 medical users in Canada permitted to buy
Health Canada marijuana, which is grown in Flin Flon. The 30-gram bags
of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier directly to
patients or to their doctors.

Changing Regulations

But the department is changing the regulations to allow participating
pharmacies to stock marijuana for sale to approved patients.

A notice of the change is expected to be made public this spring,
allowing for drugstore distribution later in the year. "We're just at
the preliminary stages right now," said Robin O'Brien, a consulting
pharmacist who is organizing the pilot project for Health Canada.
"We're not quite sure how it's going to fit."

Canada would become the second country in the world after the
Netherlands to allow the direct sale of medical marijuana in pharmacies.

The pilot project is slated for British Columbia because the
province's college of pharmacists issued a groundbreaking statement
last fall supporting the distribution of medical marijuana in
pharmacies, unlike most health-care organizations which have opposed
easier access.

'More Welcoming'

"Certainly the climate in British Columbia appears to be more
welcoming and supportive," O'Brien said. "This is a relatively safe
and non-toxic product."

Although the number of current approved users is small, O'Brien notes
that internal surveys for Health Canada have suggested up to seven per
cent of the British Columbia population - or about 290,000 people -
use marijuana for medical purposes, albeit illegally. Easier
availability of certified marijuana might encourage more medical users
to register with the government, rapidly boosting the number taking
advantage of legal dope, says O'Brien.