OTTAWA MAKING 'MESS' OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA ISSUE

Local News - Patients in Kingston are suffering while the federal
government waffles on medical marijuana laws, says the medical director of
Kingston General Hospital's AIDS clinic.

Dr. Peter Ford says there are patients in Kingston who would benefit from
the drug but who just can't get it. That's because Ottawa has thrown up a
baffling set of bureaucratic rules that make it almost impossible for
patients who need medical marijuana to obtain it.

"The government has made a real mess of it," Ford said yesterday.

"It's actually getting worse, not better. I get a real sense they're
stalling on the whole issue."

Patients on drugs to fight HIV and AIDS often suffer nausea and loss of
appetite as side-effects. Losing weight can be a major complication for
someone fighting the disease, and some patients find smoking marijuana
increases their appetite and controls nausea.

"It's a very effective stimulator of appetite and reducer of nausea," Ford
said.

A pill form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is available but
some patients find it less effective than smoking the drug.

Ottawa recently announced that it wants more research into the effects and
benefits of medical marijuana.

In the meantime, doctors who want to prescribe the drug for patients are
faced with a bureaucratic wall that requires them to affirm statements they
say are impossible to prove.

Doctors must assure Health Canada that marijuana poses no long-term risk,
as well as detailing what each patient's dose will be in milligrams,
something Ford says is impossible given the variety of qualities of
marijuana that people can obtain.

Many provincial medical associations have advised doctors not to answer the
questions but Health Canada will not accept the forms without the
information, even when doctors send along a letter explaining why the form
is incomplete.

Without federal authorization, patients must acquire marijuana on the
streets or risk arrest by growing it themselves.

"They're smoking it, they're just doing it illegally," explained Ford of
the predicament in which patients find themselves.

"If they get picked up by the police for possession of a small quantity we'
ve told them that we're prepared to go to bat for them."

Ford said the clinic has not yet had to intervene on behalf of a patient
facing a drug charge.

In addition to helping HIV patients, the drug has also been found effective
when taken by people with glaucoma, cancer and other conditions, and by the
terminally ill.

The government's first crop of marijuana, grown in an abandoned mine in
Manitoba, was started with plants seized by police and varied in strength.
Ottawa has begun a second crop.

But although the government has been growing marijuana for medical use,
federal Health Minister Anne McLellan said last month that none of its
marijuana would be distributed until clinical trials have been conducted.

No such trials have started.

Ford is worried by the government's latest move.

"Clinical trials take years and you can design them to give you whatever
results you want," he said, pointing out that the government could evaluate
marijuana for pain relief, which it does not do well, and conclude it is
not an effective drug.

He says he suspects Jean Chretien's Liberal government is in no rush to
make it easier for patients to get marijuana because of the United States,
which is engaged in a war on drugs and regularly hands out long jail
sentences for people using or trafficking marijuana.

"We've gotten an impression that the government is scared to lighten up on
this out of fear of offending the Americans," Ford said.