SEIZED POT PACKS PUNCH, OTTAWA FINDS

But Patients Fuming At Health Canada Over Supply Delays

They may have come from a meadow in British Columbia -- or a well-lit
basement in Brampton, Ont.

But whatever their origins, two strains of marijuana have been selected,
from hundreds of others, as possible candidates for clinical research in
Health Canada's beleaguered program to investigate and supply cannabis as
medicine.

Both varieties pack a punch, sources say, with a level of THC, marijuana's
key active ingredient, of 10 percent and up. The strains have been cloned
to produce plants in large quantities.

To date, Health Canada has been unable to beg, buy or borrow marijuana
seeds or plants from any legitimate source -- including the U.S. National
Institute on Drug Addiction or the Netherlands.

The federal department has instead had to rely on dope seized in drug busts
across the country to support its medicinal pot plot in an abandoned
Manitoba mineshaft.

Although the final decision on ideal strains has not been made, the two
candidates to emerge from the bags of illegal weed are the first signs of
progress in months.

"It is progressing well," said Gillian Lynch, director general of Health
Canada's Drug Strategy and Controlled Substances Program, who confirmed
last week that "we are looking at a couple of strains."

Any approved harvest from the government's year-old pot-growing operation
in Flin Flon will be used in clinical trials to assess the safety and
effectiveness of marijuana in treating symptoms associated with diseases
such as AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

But the program, on which the government is spending $5.7-million, was
originally designed to supply the drug to all sick Canadians medically
qualified to possess it.

Now, however, Ms. Lynch said that aside from approved strains, the bulk of
the pot grown to date -- more than 250 kilograms worth -- will be used only
for non-human research.

Patients anxious for a steady supply of marijuana are meanwhile fuming over
the delays.

Eight Canadians are heading to court in September to have the program's
restrictive regulations struck down and the marijuana grown in Flin Flon
turned over to patients by year's end.

Toronto lawyer Alan Young, who is heading up the case, said the bureaucracy
at Health Canada has come up with excuses to delay its release.

"The bureaucracy never wanted this program, it's too much work, and I think
there's been some intimidation that if Health Canada started distributing
it, the Americans would crack down on customs," Mr. Young said.

"It's really a shame to invest so much money to grow this much marijuana,
which far exceeds the needs of a couple of clinical trials."

Like some government critics, Mr. Young suspects that Health Minister Anne
McLellan, who inherited the file from her predecessor Allan Rock, had cold
feet about moving ahead with a pot program.

This spring, Ms. McLellan said the drug's delivery would be delayed for
several months because of the inconsistent strength and wide variety of the
plants grown.

Some reports implied that the Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc.,
which won the contract to run the Flin Flon pot operation, had bad, or
impure, weed on its hands.

In response, PPS president Brent Zettl, who was asked by Health Canada not
to speak to reporters, wrote a letter to the Health Minister, that was
leaked to the news media, defending the operation and the product it aims
to produce.

Mr. Young said the issue of the "impure strains" being unsafe is a "red
herring," particularly since all the marijuana in the mine is being grown
in a clean, secure environment. "The marijuana they're sitting on is light
years safer than what's currently available to medicinal users," Mr. Young
said.

Ms. Lynch explained that the company has been documenting its operating
procedures to ensure the pot is produced according to good manufacturing
practices.

As well, she said Health Canada is working with the company to conduct a
chemical analysis of the various plant strains. "You want to make sure
you're getting a level of consistency," Ms. Lynch said.

She refused to offer a date as to when the first approved harvest might
reach clinical trials. She said, however, that she realized many sick
Canadians are waiting for it.

"We are moving ahead as quickly as we can," she said. "But we are taking a
responsible approach."

This is little comfort to people such as Alison Myrden of Burlington, Ont.,
one of the 806 Canadians licensed to possess marijuana for medical purposes
and one of the eight now suing the government.

Ms. Myrden, a former corrections officer who suffers from multiple
sclerosis, had bought marijuana from the Toronto Compassion Centre club
since 1997 to relieve pain.

But earlier this week, Toronto police raided and shut down the
organization, which sold cannabis to 1,200 ailing Ontarians. Four people
were arrested on trafficking charges, in part because it remains illegal
for people to sell pot to the sick, even though it is legal for many of
them to use it.

"I don't know what I am going to do -- I've never been able to grow it
myself," said Ms. Myrden, who has federal permission to cultivate her own
pot plants.

"The government is forcing me to go out on the streets. If I don't find a
source on the black markets, I'm back to taking 32 pills and 600 milligrams
of morphine a day."