POT POLICY UNSTEADY

The Record

The dustup between Health Minister Anne McLellan and her predecessor, Allan
Rock, over the issue of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has
left the government's policy shrouded in political smoke.

McLellan, who inherited Rock's Health portfolio and his policies on
medicinal marijuana, is balking at releasing government-grown marijuana for
the use of chronically ill Canadians until clinical trials are done on the
effects of marijuana use.

Far be it for us to be flippant, but it seems many of the effects of
marijuana, medicinally and otherwise, are well known. If Canadian clinical
trials are not available -- and it is questionable whether they are
necessary in all cases -- trials and studies from other jurisdictions are.

We sympathize with McLellan in that she keeps hitting cleanup for Rock (she
followed him in the Justice Department after his gun legislation was
implemented) but it appears her call is an unnecessary delaying tactic.

The tragedy is that the delay is affecting hundreds of vulnerable, ill
Canadians who can legally use the drug but cannot get it from a legal
supplier. Rock's policy to contract with a firm to produce large quantities
of the drug under government control was an effort to get around the
problem of legal users being forced to buy marijuana on the street.

That policy makes sense.

Rock has raised the issue that his colleague may be bowing, in part, to
U.S. drug officials who are opposed to the Canadian government controlling
the supply of medicinal marijuana. If that is the case, McLellan is wrong.
The last nation that Canada should take advice from on drug policy is the U.S.

Summary - Delay on marijuana decision affects the vulnerable.