WHAT A HASH

THE CANADIAN MEDICAL Association is right in objecting to Ottawa's
half-baked plan to have doctors dispense medical marijuana to federally
approved patients. Arguing, correctly, that the policy does nothing to
protect patient safety or to provide physicians with an evidence-based
framework to support prescribing pot, the CMA is strongly recommending that
doctors not participate in dispensing the drug under the current regulations.

The CMA's protest is a healthy reminder this issue should not simply be
driven by expediency and the courts. Judges can rule on fair and
compassionate access to a drug, but they are still not licensed to practise
medicine.

The Ontario Superior Court had set last Wednesday as the deadline for
Ottawa to provide legal access to marijuana for medical use. Ottawa is
appealing the decision, but on the last day, Health Canada threw together a
policy of having doctors sell federally supplied cannabis and seeds from
their offices to approved patients.

Both Health Canada and doctors are uneasy about a lack of clinical evidence
on the safety and efficacy of a substance that has not been subjected to
the drug-approval process. And obvious health questions are raised by using
smoking as a delivery system. But the feds have ignored health and science
due diligence, opting instead for a quick and dirty way to satisfy the courts.

It does not have to be this way. The CMA has suggested 10 criteria that
would make regulations medically defensible. These include physician
education and liability protection and setting up the program as a clinical
trial, with authorized doctors, treatment protocols, monitoring of patients
and studies of the impact of the drug.

If marijuana is a medicine, let's treat it like one.