HYSTERIA STILL REIGNS ON POT LAWS

A Senate committee bluntly declared earlier this month that Ottawa's new
laws governing therapeutic marijuana are unworkable.

The federal government's highly publicized plan to allow terminally ill
Canadians and those with serious ailments to smoke pot are "illusory," the
committee noted in its report on illegal drugs.

Dale and Alice Strohmaier, who both have hepatitis C because of blood
transfusions, are again in danger of being busted for growing pot.

They are among 441 Canadians who were exempt from prosecution under the old
medicinal pot rules because of the severity of their conditions.

I wrote about them in February because their exemptions were about to
expire and they were finding it impossible to meet the requirements under
the new regulations.

Because of concerns expressed by the Canadian Medical Association, the
Edmonton couple couldn't find the mandated two medical specialists to
approve their applications for medicinal marijuana. A little publicity
helped. After my column ran, Health Canada extended their exemptions for
six months.

Here we go again. Their permission to grow and possess pot runs out at the
end of October.

Once again, they've been doing the rounds of doctors' offices, hoping for
physician signatures. No such luck. They've been to their family
physicians, pain specialists and liver doctors. All turned them down.

It's not that the docs don't think pot can be therapeutic. As their pain
specialist wrote to Dale's family doctor: "It seems Mr. Strohmaier clearly
has symptomatic improvement on the use of marijuana that he has not been
able to achieve with other therapies."

Because of the "flaws" in the federal government's approval process, he
won't sign the forms, the specialist wrote in his July letter.

Dale and Alice plan to forward the letter to Health Canada officials, who
have declined to extend their ministerial exemptions under the old rules.

Department staff are "very sympathetic" to the problem but their hands are
tied because it's a political issue, notes Dale.

Currently, they have permission to cultivate 40 pot plants - enough that
they can smoke the allowable four grams a day each.

But they fear that if no further clemency is granted, police will
confiscate the plants and charge them after their exemption expires on Oct. 27.

If that happens, they'll be forced to increase the modest amounts of
painkillers they already consume. That, of course, poses the risk of addiction.

They find it sadly ironic that Ottawa would prefer they take higher doses
of potentially habit-forming painkillers than continue smoking pot, which
isn't addictive. "We're not trying to be criminals. We're just trying to be
regular citizens," says Alice.

Calls to Health Minister Anne McLellan's office haven't been returned, she
says. They suspect McLellan is not as committed to a medicinal marijuana
program as her predecessor in the portfolio, Allan Rock.

Now, they hope the current Ontario court challenge of the therapeutic pot
laws and a pending Supreme Court of Canada hearing on the issue will win
sick Canadians more freedom to use pot.

Some physicians are filling out medical pot forms for patients, notes
Health Canada spokesman Andrew Swift. Under the new rules, 376 people have
been authorized to possess pot. Mind you, not all of them are allowed to
grow it. "They get it where they can get it," says Swift.

Of the Strohmaiers' predicament, he says: "It's a difficult situation. I
can appreciate that."

But the process requires the input of physicians, he says.

It makes you long for a government with the common sense of the Senate
committee which recommended that pot be legalized and regulated. As the
committee noted, our early drug laws were based on "moral panic."

Hysteria still reigns.