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Ottawa to ease rules for medical marijuana

By Hempology | June 28, 2005

OTTAWA Under fire by critics for providing a half-hearted, and overlyrestrictive medical marijuana program, the federal government government will unveil new regulations this week designed to ease the onus on physicians and patients.

BY NORMA GREENAWAY

A major change drops the demand that doctors agree in writing that the benefits of smoking marijuana outweigh the risks to their patients. Doctors had balked at being obliged to make such a statement in the absence of marijuana being an approved therapeutic product.
Applicants say its hard to find doctors, Valerie Lasher, the manager of Health Canadas medical marijuana program, said as she briefed a reporter on the changes. What we have tried to do is streamline the regulations.
The new regime ends the requirement that one specialist, and in some cases two, must sign the application. From now on, the signature of a general practitioner will suffice, as long as in some defined cases, the physician provides the name of a specialist the patient has seen in the last year.
In the case of patients with terminal illnesses, doctors signing their applications for medical marijuana will no longer have to state the person will die within a year. The doctor only has to state the patient is suffering from a terminal illness.
The new regulations for the five-yearold program are slated to be published Wednesday in the Canada Gazette.
Medical pot users, health professionals and politicians have slagged the government program for everything from supplying bad weed to being too restrictive about who qualifies as a licenced medical marijuana user or grower. They charged the application forms were a bureaucratic maze.
Lasher said building the program has been challenging.
But she refused to apologize for the quality of the marijuana, which she said was research grade and sells for $5 a gram, or half the blackmarket rate.
Nor is she apologetic about the progress made in implementing one of the worlds only government-run medical marijuana programs for people suffering from terminal illnesses and such conditions as AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.
Its evolving, she said. We are in the vanguard on this. We didnt really have anybody else to copy.
This is marijuana for medical purposes, she said. Its not about legalization. Its not about decriminalization. Its not about recreation. Its about giving people access to a product that they honestly believe is the best, if not the only treatment for them.
Lasher conceded almost all applications so far have been slowed or listed as dormant because they have arrived with something missing, usually the required medical signatures.
The Canadian Medical Association has resisted the program from Day 1 on grounds marijuana is an unproven therapy and an illegal drug.
Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the CMA, said hes eager to see the new regulations when they are published this week.
We have a lot of concerns with the way the physician was sandwiched into the process for something that was unproven therapy, he said in an interview.
He predicted the vast majority of Canadian doctors will continue to refuse to sign medical marijuana applications until there is evidence pot has therapeutic value.
NDP MP Libby Davies says the governments approach has forced thousands of sick Canadians to turn to illegal sources for their marijuana.
Its obvious the government was dragged kicking and screaming into providing a medical marijuana program after the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in 2000 that banning marijuana for medical purposes violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, she said.
Davies contends the low number of people qualifying and using the federal program tell the story.
As of June 3 this year, a total of 864 people were authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes, 636 persons were allowed to cultivate it for that purpose, and 143 people were receiving medical marijuana from the governments $5.7 million grow operation in an abandoned mine in Flin Flon, Man. The operation is run by Prairie Plant Systems Inc. in Saskatoon.
Lasher refused to characterize the uptake as small, arguing there are no reliable numbers on how many Canadians are using marijuana for medical purposes. She acknowledged, however, the product is easier to come by on the black market.

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