HEALTH CANADA PLANS PILOT PROJECT TO PUT CERTIFIED MARIJUANA INTO PHARMACIES

OTTAWA (CP) - 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, Man. The 30-gram
bags of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier
directly to patients or to their doctors.

But the department is changing the regulations to allow participating
pharmacies to stock marijuana for sale to approved patients without a
doctor's prescription, similar to regulations governing so-called
morning-after pills, emergency contraceptives that can be obtained
directly from a pharmacist without the need for a doctor's signature.

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. It would also mark the first time community drugstores in
Canada could sell a controlled substance that is not an approved drug.

"The difficulty is that marijuana does not have a notice of
compliance, so it doesn't have a drug identification number," O'Brien
said from Vancouver.

"There's no pharmaceutical company that's going to come forward to
take it through the regulatory process because they can't get a patent
on it, so it's kind of a limbo drug."

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.

"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.

"We're not quite sure how big it could get," she said.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the method of ingestion.
Pharmacists have long opposed tobacco products and do not want
patients smoking marijuana.

Solutions could include developing a liquid form - a tincture - or TAB
Capsules for oral ingestion, or the use of vapourizers that release
the essential ingredient THC without burning.

However, some approved users say the Health Canada dope is of such
poor quality that wider distribution and novel forms will not
necessarily attract more users.

"It is of incredibly poor quality," said Philippe Lucas of Victoria,
who is authorized to receive government marijuana. "A very raunchy,
poor quality smoke."

Lucas and other users have said the marijuana, which Health Canada
says contains about 10 per cent THC, is actually much weaker.

Jari Dvorak, one of the first to receive Health Canada marijuana last
fall, says he stopped using the product three months ago because the
department has not lived up to its promises to improve the quality.

"I have not seen any evidence of change yet," Dvorak said from
Toronto.

A department spokeswoman says tests are under way to improve the
marijuana after numerous complaints from users.

"We are taking the concerns of users seriously," said Aggie
Adamczyk.

Lucas, who's with the lobby group Canadians for Safe Access, says the
move to place government-certified marijuana in pharmacies is a
prelude to Health Canada's longer-term goal of controlling all
supplies of medical marijuana.

Currently, registered users have the option of growing their own or
having someone grow it for them - a privilege they could lose as
government dope becomes more widely available.

Health Canada, which has long opposed the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, has been forced by a series of court rulings to allow
approved patients access to the drug. The department says clinical
trials are necessary to demonstrate the efficacy of marijuana.

Some patients report that marijuana alleviates the pain and nausea
associated with AIDS and other diseases.