POT PRESCRIPTIONS

The lives of hundreds of medical marijuana users in the
Toronto-Hamilton area have been thrown into chaos by a police raid on
a club that sold them dope.

Toronto police raided the Toronto Compassion Club in mid-August,
closing down the operation that bought dope from suppliers and sold it
at street value to users. Many of those people are legal medical
marijuana users with permits from the federal government. Others had
only prescriptions from their doctors.

The owners have been charged with trafficking. And now users say they
can't get the "medicine" they need to ease their pain or medical conditions.

"My phone has been ringing off the wall from members calling, asking
what we can do to help," said Mike McGaw, assistant manager of the
Canadian Medical Marijuana Association, an advocacy group that
operates on the Internet.

Tillsonburg's McGaw is one of the 855 people who have so far been
authorized since 2000 by Health Canada to use cannabis to relieve pain
and symptoms of medical conditions ranging from HIV-AIDS, multiple
sclerosis, cancer and arthritis to terminal illnesses.

McGaw, a 43-year-old former tax consultant, suffers from severe back
pain as a result of a car accident which left him partially paralysed
on one side. He is licenced to grow cannabis for his personal use, but
sometimes runs out and must search for a supply.

McGaw said he has been referring people who call to other compassion
clubs still operating. The clubs sell marijuana at about $80 a
quarter-ounce. Enforcement and drought have driven the price of a
pound close to $3,000.

"We're very frustrated, and very angry, and very confused," said
Dominic Cramer, a volunteer supporter and spokesperson for the Toronto
Compassion Club.

The club, at Bathurst Street and St. Clair Avenue, operated using a
small network of unlicensed cannabis growers as sources for its 1,200
members.

There are about 15 compassion clubs in Canada -- "the only safe outlet
for people to get their medicine," said Cramer.

But there is new hope for medical users. The Senate Committee on
Illegal Drugs recommended Wednesday that marijuana be legalized for
people 16 and older. Members said it should be treated like tobacco
and alcohol.

Decriminalizing marijuana might be a "first step" in reforming drug
laws which seem out of date, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said
yesterday. The marijuana law needs to be changed, he said, and
decriminalization -- which would let people possess and use small
quantities of cannabis without facing a criminal record -- is a
logical option.

"It probably would be feasible as a first step," Cauchon said outside
a cabinet meeting. "I feel that there is a strong support. I feel that
the population is there.

"To keep it the way it is now doesn't make any sense to me in the year
2002."

Cauchon said he'll have a new policy ready early next year, but first
he wants to see the report of a Commons committee which has been
studying the issue of illicit drugs. That report is expected in November.

Burlington's Alison Myrden suffers from multiple sclerosis and was
among the first in Canada to get legal permission to use marijuana for
the sharp, stabbing facial pain she experiences. She has been forced
to buy marijuana on the street.

Myrden's never sure what's in the pot. And it isn't always the right
strain to properly relieve her pain. She was hospitalized and back on
morphine shortly after the club was raided.

"I don't want the streets to be my pharmacy," said Myrden, 38. "At the
clubs, I was able to try various strains for this pain in my face."

In 2000, Health Canada awarded biotechnology company Prairie Plant
Systems a five-year, $5.7-million contract to grow standardized,
research-grade marijuana. It is to eventually supply cannabis for
long-term Canadian research into the safety and effectiveness of
marijuana for various conditions.

Allan Rock was the Health Minister at the time. He developed the rules
that allow sufferers of certain medical conditions to grow and smoke
cannabis. He hired Saskatoon's Prairie Plant Systems to grow marijuana
many users understood it would be grown for them.

But his successor, Anne McLellan, says legal users will not have
access to the government pot; that they must still find their own
supplies. Instead, the drug will be used strictly for research.

In Toronto, a spokesman and founder for Cannabis As Living Medicine
said growers are "legitimately scared."

"They provide what the government is supposed to provide," said the
spokesman, who goes by the name Neev. "They have legitimate worries
about being arrested."

Growing marijuana is illegal and police across the country have been
cracking down in grow operations. They consider them criminal
enterprises.

The 600-member CALM was formed in 1997 to provide the sick with
medical marijuana through three contract growers. Members need
doctors' letters stating their medical condition and that marijuana
helps their chronic or terminal condition. CALM staff then verify the
information.

It operates like a compassion house. "We try and make it simple for
medical users, given how vulnerable they are," said Neev.

In Ottawa, Gillian Lynch is director-general of Health Canada's Drug
Strategy and Controlled Substance division, under which the Office of
Cannabis Medical Access was established in 2001. Its mandate is to
administer regulations permitting the sick access to cannabis for
medical purposes. She said the number of people applying for
permission is growing steadily.

"We know there are a lot of Canadians suffering from terminal
illnesses and grave illnesses and they do feel smoking marijuana helps
them to live more comfortably, and they have the support of their
physicians in that belief."

When Ottawa amended the Narcotic Control Act and brought in the
Marijuana Medical Access Regulation on July 1, 2001, Canada became the
first country in the world to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
Health Canada began giving medical exemptions in 2000 under Section 56
of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act, following an Ontario Court
of Appeal ruling that it was unconstitutional to criminalize a person
for using a substance that alleviates the symptoms of a serious
medical disease.

The regulations allow users to possess or grow marijuana under these
conditions:

* That they are terminally ill with a survival prognosis of less than
12 months.

* That they suffer from pain or muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis,
spinal cord injury and disease.

* That they have pain, weight loss or severe nausea as a result of
cancer and HIV-AIDS.

Also eligible are those who suffer from severe forms of arthritis and
epilepsy.

They need a declaration from medical specialists that conventional
treatments have been tried or considered.

Canada's first medical trials involving smoked marijuana, funded by
Health Canada, are set to start at the end of this month, involving 32
people suffering from HIV-AIDS in Toronto. The trials, conducted by
the Community Research Initiative of Toronto in conjunction with a
Toronto hospital, will determine if smoked marijuana enhances
appetites and alleviates the wasting syndrome affecting HIV-AIDS sufferers.

And in the fall, Montreal clinical trials are being planned at the
Pain Centre of McGill University Health Centre to examine the effect
of smoked marijuana on patients suffering from neuropathic
(abnormalities along the nerve pathways) pain.

"The two studies are firsts for Canada," said Kimberly Walker, CRIT's
executive director in Toronto.

The marijuana for these studies will be provided by the U.S. National
Institute on Drug Abuse. Their first batch of 75 kilograms was
harvested last December. It was grown from seeds taken by the RCMP,
but inconsistent quality made it unusable. Lynch said the next batch
of Flin Flon samples won't be ready until the end of the year. It will
go to larger projects still to be developed.

Studies on the medical benefits and risks of marijuana are
inconclusive. But researchers from the University of California, San
Francisco, reported two years ago that they found significant weight
gain -- an average of 3.5 kilograms -- among HIV-AIDS sufferers who
smoked marijuana, and no sign that it adversely affected their immune
systems. The Canadian Medical Association Journal notes that cannabis
is the most widely used illicit drug in developed countries, but there
is limited epidemiological research on its health effects. At high
doses, according to the journal, there may be an increased risk of
experiencing psychotic symptoms, and an increased risk of
low-birth-weight babies if cannabis is smoked during pregnancy. As
well, the CMA reports heavy users can develop a cannabis dependency
and respiratory diseases.

The American Medical Association notes that the question of whether
prolonged use of cannabis leads to a deterioration of cognitive
function -- thinking -- remains unresolved.

Medicinal use of cannabis appears to have begun around 2737 BC in
China and then spread to India.

Antique writings describe it as a plant that could relieve stress,
says author Mitch Earleywine, associate professor of clinical science
and director of clinical training in psychology at the University of
Southern California. "The plant consistently appeared in pharmacopoeia
and folk medicine as a treatment for pain, seizure, muscle spasm, poor
appetite, nausea, insomnia, asthma and depression."

In Boston, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, professor emeritus in the faculty of
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said Canada is to be applauded
for its efforts to undertake clinical trials. But "as far as I'm
concerned the mountain of anecdotal evidence which already exists has
more than answered the questions about the benefits of marijuana."