HOW TO STALL ON MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan must be thankful she is not a judge
on the Supreme Court of Canada. As a judge, she would have to make a
decision. But as a cabinet minister faced with severely ill Canadians
awaiting a federal supply of medicinal marijuana, she looks desperately to
the wisdom of -- who else -- the judges.

This is rescue work, plain and simple, for a government grown too cowardly
to make hard choices. It is not the first time; Ottawa recently scuttled to
the courts hoping for an escape hatch on gay marriage. But it is all the
more galling given Ms. McLellan's role in creating the Catch-22 in which
people with AIDS, cancer patients and others find themselves.

As a result of a ruling two years ago by the Ontario Court of Appeal, it is
legal for terminally ill people to use marijuana for pain relief. Yet the
Criminal Code makes it illegal for them to buy the drug.

Once, the government understood that its leadership was required to
extricate the very sick from this bind. It was none other than Anne
McLellan, in her earlier job as justice minister, who said she would not
appeal the Ontario court's ruling. Instead, she created an exemption for
the ill people in the criminal law. Then the Health Department, under Allan
Rock, spent $5.7-million to grow marijuana in a Flin Flon mine shaft, run
clinical studies and supply sick people with the drug.

The marijuana was to have been available by last January. More than 250
kilograms of cannabis have been harvested, but none has been made available
to the 800-plus people who have obtained the necessary medical
certificates. The government has not clearly explained why.

Now it emerges -- thanks to a doctor who questioned Ms. McLellan at a
public meeting of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) in Saint John --
that Ottawa has cold feet. It will not, said the minister, distribute
marijuana until clinical trials have been completed. After all this time,
those trials have not even begun.

Ms. McLellan says she fears the government will undermine its antismoking
campaign by supplying marijuana. This seems improbable. It is a drug
strictly limited under controlled conditions to very ill people.

For its part, the CMA says the benefits of using marijuana have not clearly
been shown to outweigh the risks. For instance, the smoke weakens the
immune system, making it more difficult to fight off disease and
infections. The CMA and its insurer say that because the drug has not been
tested, doctors could be open to lawsuits if they prescribed marijuana.

The federal government should recall that the main reason to supply
marijuana is compassion for the sick. This can be achieved without bringing
lawsuits down on doctors' heads. Regulations could be rewritten to ensure
that only those with the most severe illnesses qualify, removing the fuzzy
area that now includes those with, say, chronic back pain. Doctors who give
an honest assessment to their patients of the known risks and benefits, and
who fill out forms describing a patient's illness and medication use,
should be able to help patients qualify without fear of a lawsuit.

Ms. McLellan prefers to throw up her hands and turn to the judges. Yet the
only case before the Supreme Court turns on whether recreational use of the
drug can legally be banned. There is a medicinal-marijuana case in the
lower courts, but it is a long way from being heard by the country's senior
judges.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has already decided the matter. Ms. McLellan
accepted that decision. She should move forward quickly, even while the
clinical trials are proceeding, to ensure that those in desperate need of
this form of pain relief are able to receive it.