OUR POT'S TOO POTENT

Crop In Flin Flon Hits Another Snag

A strain of government-certified marijuana is extremely potent but
difficult to grow, and may eventually be abandoned as too much trouble,
officials say.

The flowering tops or buds of the strain, grown for Health Canada in a
vacant mine section in Flin Flon, Man., contain between 20 and 25 per cent
THC, the most active ingredient of marijuana, laboratory results show.

American tests on marijuana seized by U.S. police forces suggest ordinary
street dope averages about five per cent THC, with sinsemilla -- considered
the champagne of weed -- averaging about 10 per cent.

But the highly potent Flin Flon strain -- one of two official strains that
together produced a crop of 244 kilograms last fall -- is anemic and tough
to grow successfully.

"We don't want high-maintenance plants," said Cindy Cripps-Prawak, chief of
Ottawa's medical marijuana program.

"It's still unclear to me whether or not that is going to be the strain
we're going to continue with." The second strain is producing a respectable
THC content as well, between 13 and 18 per cent in its buds. Those levels
are more in line with the needs of clinical trials, said Cripps-Prawak.

"By and large, the researchers have told us they're interested more in the
lower-range plants, the lower-range THC content" of about 15 per cent or
less, she said in an interview.

Health Canada has said it will not make any of its marijuana available
directly to needy patients because it first wants to see scientific proof
about whether the drug is effective.

Instead, patients approved by Health Canada must either grow their own
marijuana or have someone else grow it for them.

If Health Canada agrees to abandon its high-potency strain, it will be
another setback in a problem-plagued project to grow standardized Canadian
marijuana for medical trials that will determine whether the drug offers
any benefits -- such as pain relief -- to the chronically ill.

Some of the other setbacks, as outlined in documents obtained under the
Access to Information Act: * Prairie Plant Systems Inc. of Saskatoon,
Sask., which in 2000 was awarded a five-year, $5.75-million contract to
grow government dope, has so far failed to deliver any acceptable placebo
marijuana.

The contract called for 50 kilograms of placebo product, containing less
than 0.1 per cent THC, to be delivered last year.

But the company has been unable to grow anything with so little THC, and is
considering using chemical means to remove the active ingredient in some of
the existing crop.

Researchers need a placebo product for blind trials to demonstrate whether
THC is effective in alleviating some medical conditions.

* The contract also required delivery of 370 kilograms of regular product
last year, but Prairie Plant Systems was able to produce only 244 kilograms.