MEDICAL MARIJUANA BAN AN UNJUST LAW

The Doctor Game - W. Gifford-Jones MD.

HOW would you feel if you were suffering the terrible symptoms of cancer,
AIDS and other serious diseases? If you knew that smoking marijuana
provided some relief, but then be told that Anne McLellan, the new federal
minister of health, had vetoed the plan to supply pot.

I don't believe anyone without such agonizing symptoms knows how
disappointed and frustrated these patients must be. What she has done is
unbelievable hypocrisy. What's worse is that the Canadian Medical
Association, in its infinite wisdom, has agreed with her.

McLellan claims she cannot agree to marijuana when she's also dedicated to
fighting tobacco use. What rubbish! It's a ridiculous argument. These
patients need pot for medicinal purposes that has nothing to do with
cigarette use.

Then the minister argues she's not comfortable providing marijuana until
clinical trials prove it is safe. Come on! Let's be sensible. Have you
considered how uncomfortable patients are day after day retching and in
pain? And you ask them to wait for years? They will be dead by that time.

The irony continues. The honourable minister says that marijuana should be
subject to the same standards as other legitimate drugs. I'd suggest that
she examine the list of prescription drugs. Most of these legal drugs have
a list of adverse reactions as long as your arm, some fatal.

The minister of health should know that thousands of patients die every
year from the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to treat
arthritis. Others from taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. But I've never
heard of anyone dying from smoking pot. One could argue that prescription
drugs should be subject to the same safety standard as marijuana!

Part of McLellan's decision to snuff out marijuana was due to a doctor who
criticized the medical use of pot at the last meeting of the Canadian
Medical Association (CMA). I've listened to this type of self-righteous
physician before. They are always prone to foist their moral but
undocumented views on others and love to hear themselves talk. Surely
McLellan should know there are thousands of other doctors who do not share
his view.

What is more appalling is the lack of wisdom of the CMA. It wants clinical
trials done even though it will take years to conduct them. Even when it is
aware that clinical evidence shows that marijuana has helped many patients
suffering from AIDS, cancer and epilepsy.

Its excuse? It is concerned that doctors could be open to lawsuits. That's
a lame argument. I can't envision a situation where a patient would sue a
physician who has prescribed marijuana for compassionate reasons. This
attitude is simply a cop-out. It's another example of the conservative
medical organizations that have never been in the forefront of social change.

Allan Rock, the former minister of health, took a more realistic approach.
He approved spending $5.7 million to grow marijuana in a Flin Flon mine
shaft. He realized that the potential harm to the lungs from inhaling pot
smoke was negligible to the medical benefits from its use. But, once again,
common sense remains such an uncommon commodity.

This whole debate reminds me of another fight years ago: The years I spent
trying to legalize heroin to treat terminal cancer pain. The Canadian
Cancer Society, cancer specialists, CMA, pharmacists and RCMP all opposed
it, claiming it wasn't needed. Yet British doctors had used heroin
effectively for 80 years. (If interested, the details are covered in my
book You're Going To Do What?) Finally, McLellan wants the Supreme Court to
decide this matter. But this requires years of waiting for a verdict.
Besides, this should not be a matter for judges in ermine robes. It's
another devious cop-out for a politician fearful of controversy when it
should be a simple, straightforward medical decision between physician and
patient.

Currently there are about 800 patients who have applied for the use of
marijuana on compassionate grounds. The federal government has approved
these cases.

Now, due to McLellan's shilly-shallying, they will continue to retch, have
needless epileptic attacks and debilitating pain.

Human compassion, and that alone, should make marijuana available to
patients who need it. It's too bad that politicians, doctors and moralists,
along with Anne McLellan, can't be made to suffer these symptoms for 24
long hours. How quickly unjust, unreasonable, cruel laws would change.