ANNE 'STALLING' ON POT

SAGUENAY, Que. -- Health Minister Anne McLellan backed down yesterday from
plans to snuff out government experiments to supply medical marijuana,
adding she'll wait for the results of clinical tests before making a decision.

"I have to be very concerned about the health and safety of Canadians," she
said. "We are dealing with a drug that has not gone through the normal
clinical trials that one would expect in relation to a product of this kind."

But Edmontonian Bob Burrill, who has been granted permission by the federal
government to use medicinal marijuana, is frustrated by the latest delay.
He said because he's in pain, he can't sustain his own crop.

"A lot of times I'm just too sick to get up and tend to my crop," said
Burrill, who has severe arthritis of the spine.

"It's a living hell, I'm a 42-year-old man and without my medicine, without
marijuana, I'm a non-human. A second-class citizen. That's the way I feel,
like I don't matter."

But McLellan said she won't make a move until she gets the results of the
clinical tests, which are expected to start late this fall or early winter.

McLellan told the Canadian Medical Association in Saint John on Monday that
she felt uncomfortable with the idea of Ottawa providing pot to relieve pain.

She told the gathering she was considering putting an end to the federal
government's controversial $5.7-million project to grow medicinal-grade
marijuana in a Manitoba mine.

McLellan also said she hoped the Supreme Court would tackle the issue soon
for clarity's sake.

But yesterday McLellan denied ever suggesting the project might not go forward.

"No one was more surprised than I was when ... I saw a headline that said
we intended to shelve our plan around medical marijuana," she said.

"In fact there have been no changes of policy."

McLellan said she is concerned for the quality of the pot and whether it
will be safe for those sick Canadians who have received a ministerial
permit to purchase it.

John Conroy, an Abbotsford lawyer for the B.C. Compassion Club and one of
the lawyers going to the Supreme Court in December to challenge the
prohibition of marijuana, said more clinical testing is just a way for the
government to stall. He said pot should not be categorized as a
pharmaceutical drug but as a natural health-care product.

"You have to look at it in my opinion like a (natural product) people can
use with or without their doctor's consultation," said Conroy. "It's a way
to stall, it's a way to cater to the medical profession, the pharmaceutical
industry. The people who control the manufacturing of drugs."

He added that McLellan is also stalling to appease pressure from the U.S.,
which is opposed to the idea of medicinal exemptions.