OTTAWA SMOKES TEST MARIJUANA

Ottawa - The first batch of marijuana grown by a private company under a
Health Canada contract was useless for clinical trials and had to be
burned, Health Minister Anne McLellan told Montreal La Presse in an
interview published Saturday.

Prairie Plant Systems Inc. received a five-year, $5 million federal
contract to grow marijuana in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Man.,
but McLellan said their first batch was not uniform.

Prairie Plant Systems was unable to receive a supply of standardized
marijuana seeds from the United States, McLellan said, so the company
turned to the RCMP, which supplied seeds that were seized in various raids.

"So there definitely wasn't any standardization of the product," McLellan
told La Presse. "From the first harvest it was very clear - my people did
the tests here - that there were all sorts of marijuana. Plants from
different stocks with rates of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, that
varied from plant to plant. All of it had to be burned."

Scientists have since been able to produce standardized seeds that have led
to a second, more uniform harvest in Flin Flon which will be used for testing.

"That harvest is in the process of being checked," McLellan said. "It will
soon be available for clinical trials."

McLellan denied the perception that she does not favour the use of
marijuana for medicinal uses. McLellan acknowledged the position of
pro-marijuana activists, who tout the plant's value as a relief for nausea
caused by AIDS and cancer treatments, among other uses.

But McLellan said there is still no scientific proof of these claims.

"In fact, we don't know enough," she said. "I asked my ministry to examine
all of the research. The conclusion was that there is very, very little
happening right now to determine the medical benefits associated with
marijuana use.

"There's a lot of anecdotes on marijuana use, people who say that it gives
them relief, allows them to keep their food down etc... But the problem is
that if you want a doctor to prescribe you some pot, he would be very
reticent to do so without serious medical and scientific facts that would
allow him to make a clear decision."

Doctors, McLellan added, are more and more preoccupied with the legal
implications of prescribing a drug whose effects have not been
scientifically verified.

"If they prescribe this product without knowing if there are serious
side-effects, without knowing how pot interacts with other substances or
other chemical cocktails, they risk facing lawsuits," McLellan said.

McLellan feels marijuana should be treated exactly like any other new
medication, which means it should be subject to a rigorous battery of tests
before it is approved for use by the public.