CANADIAN GOVT BEGINS SELLING POT

From correspondents in Toronto

ARI Dvorak scored 60 grams of pot and lit up, but - unlike in the past - the
deal involved no back alley exchange or hiding from police.

This time, the 62-year-old Dvorak went to a doctor to pick up his supply,
making him one of the first patients to receive government-grown marijuana.
He paid $US$245 ($380), tax included.

"I just smoked some and it's doing the trick," the HIV-positive Dvorak said.
He is one of several hundred Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana
for pain, nausea and other symptoms of catastrophic or chronic illness.

The program announced last month by the federal health department provides
marijuana grown by the government in a former copper mine turned underground
greenhouse in northern Manitoba.

Dvorak described his new stash as light green and orange in color,
resembling ground tobacco sealed in vacuum-packed bags. If he saw some lying
around, he said, "I would say that's marijuana, especially if I sniff it."

Getting it has been a three-year struggle for Dvorak and other Canadian
patients who have battled through the courts to make the government respond
to what they call their need for a compassionate exemption from criminal
law.

Marijuana possession remains a crime in Canada, though the government has
proposed making small amounts - less than 15 grams (half an ounce) -
punishable by a citation and fine similar to a traffic ticket. Officials in
the neighboring United States have warned of tighter border security if
Canada takes that step.

Last month, Health Minister Anne McLellan announced the program to sell the
government-grown marijuana, satisfying an Ontario court order for the
government to make a legal supply available to authorized patients. The
court ruling said current laws made "seriously ill, vulnerable people deal
with the criminal underworld to get medicine."

Dvorak's supply came with something he never had seen - a content analysis.
He noted the THC content was 10.2 percent, compared to the range of 3
percent to 18 percent in most street marijuana. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or
THC, is the psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

He smokes marijuana in the morning to soothe nausea from the HIV drugs he
has taken for 15 years.

"I'm so happy the government is coming through with it," Dvorak said. "Are
they going to carry on with it? We'll see."

McLellan has called the initial program an interim measure to satisfy the
court order while the government appeals the ruling.

Canada unveiled plans for medical marijuana in 2000 and began growing a
supply in the abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, Manitoba. New regulations
took effect on July 30, 2001, expanding the number of Canadians allowed to
use medical marijuana and allowing people to grow their own or designate
someone to grow it for them.

The regulations also cleared the way for distribution of the
government-grown pot, but McLellan's department later announced it needed
further tests on the effects of medicinal marijuana and its quality before
making any available.

That brought last year's court ruling ordering the government to offer a
legal supply instead of making patients buy off the street.

Medical marijuana users complain the Canadian system has been a bureaucratic
maze intended to stifle the issue instead of providing pot to those who need
it. While hundreds have received federal exemptions to grow and possess
marijuana, others say it is hard to find doctors to sign off on their
requests.

Dvorak described himself as lucky because his "compassionate" doctor
understands the need. He refused to give the doctor's name.