WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN SMOKING AT HEALTH CANADA?

Well, Well, Well

I need to chime in on the drug conversation, at least with respect to
the only illegal drug I know anything about.

Recent news of the safety of marijuana relative to alcohol and tobacco
is, of course, not really news. Nor is the truth that Health Canada's
medical marijuana program has mostly failed those who wish to use
marijuana as medicine.

Most of us know that our current government has no intention of
resurrecting the Marijuana Reform Bill, which intended not to legalize
possession but to decriminalize it and replace jail sentences for
possession of small amounts with fines.

What might be news to many, however, is that marijuana was prescribed
freely by Canadian physicians until full prohibition in 1932
(recreational use has been prohibited since 1923) and by traditional
healers for thousands of years. Many experts say evidence of its
therapeutic value is indisputable and users say it is more effective
and has infinitely fewer negative effects than codeine as a pain reliever.

But the barriers one must overcome in pursuit of a licence for medical
marijuana are high, high enough to be out of reach for many. Though
the first one-a physician's signature-is technically not impossible
for the seriously ill (those with multiple sclerosis, spinal cord
injury, spinal cord disease, cancer, AIDS/HIV, severe arthritis and
epilepsy), doctors don' t sign readily.

And for those in the category that includes all other illness, getting
a licence is a pipe dream-they need a declaration from a specialist
who deems conventional pharmaceutical treatments for their problem are
ineffective or medically inappropriate. Those who find that marijuana
alleviates their symptoms of depression or attention deficit or
insomnia or fibromyalgia or panic might just as well not trouble
themselves with the application process-we do, after all, have real
medicines to deal with those things, things like Zoloft and Prozac and
Valium and Ativan and Flurazepam and Ritalin and Adderall. All of
which come with extensive tiny-print fast-talking risk warnings, of
course, and all of which are making those in the pharmaceutical
business very wealthy, but no matter.

The next hoop, for those few who do make it through the first one, is
supply. Health Canada's authorized dealer, Prairie Plant Systems
(PPS), provides only one strain of cannabis-a product those in the
know say is inferior in every way. (It has been irradiated, is not
grown organically, and isn't potent enough for medical use.)

Health Canada has stated in court that compassion clubs have
historically provided a safe source to those with medical need. But on
the licence application there is no option to choose compassion clubs
as a supply source. Applicants after a high quality legal product are
out of luck. Hoops for those in need, loopholes for those in power.

Non-profit compassion clubs serve thousands, though, providing access
to a variety of strains of clean, high quality cannabis. And in
exchange for their compassion for the chronically ill, they continue
to risk arrest and criminal prosecution.

Official favouring of pharmaceutical TCH over natural health care
practitioners who have experience with herbal medicine (which cannabis
is) is no surprise. But, aside from the risks of smoke inhalation,
which can be avoided with a vaporizer, the herb has definite
advantages over the pharmaceutical version. Users of the synthetic
form report more side effects, and absorption is slower and
inconsistent. Inhalation of the herb is fast and provides flexible and
exact dose control. It's just that the herbal form isn't patentable.

My own generation is definitely more wary of non-sanctioned medication
than younger adults are-eyebrows tend to go up at the mention of
marijuana. But these same adults, confident that our solidly
trustworthy governments have our best interests in mind, think nothing
of throwing ever-growing handfuls of sanctioned drugs into their poor
unsuspecting bodies day after day, year after year, never stopping to
ask how they'll ever get off the treadmill of managing symptoms and
side-effects.

It's fine to care about the laws of the land, awkward and regressive
as they sometimes are, but our laws-from the drugs they sanction and
the resulting superbugs and side effects, to industry and farming and
fast-food and neighbourhood lawn-care practices-are killing us.

Philosopher Ivan Illich claims for himself "the liberty to refuse any
and all medical treatment at any time ... the liberty to take any drug
or treatment of my own choosing; the liberty to be treated by the
person of my choice ... whether that person be an acupuncturist, a
homeopathic physician, [or] a neurosurgeon."

It sounds reasonable to me.