FLIN FLON POT TOPS

Too Bad Nobody Can Get Their Hands On It

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% 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 5% THC, with sinsemilla -- considered the
champagne of weed -- averaging about 10%.

But the highly potent Flin Flon strain -- one of two official strains that
together produced a crop of 244 kilos 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% 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% or less),"
she said in an interview from Ottawa.

Health Canada has said it will not make any of its marijuana available
directly to patients because it first wants to see scientific proof about
the drug's effectiveness.

Patients approved by Health Canada must grow their own 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 long-or short-term benefits -- such as pain relief -- to the
chronically ill.

Cripps-Prawak said the company will use another reserve strain -- the third
- -- if a decision is made to abandon the high-potency strain.

None of the government-approved marijuana has been sent to researchers yet
pending approval of their proposals by the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research.

WEED FACTS

- - Purpose -- Health Canada wants standardized supply of marijuana for
accredited researchers to determine whether the substance has health benefits.

- - Current trials -- The Community Research Initiative of Toronto is testing
the effect of marijuana on the appetites of AIDS patients. A group at
McGill University in Montreal is testing the effects of smoked marijuana on
neuropathic pain. Health Canada provides funding but not the marijuana,
which currently comes from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

- - Future trials -- Health Canada is awaiting approval of proposed research
projects before distributing its own pot.