Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jul 2001
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: The Windsor Star 2001
Contact:  http://www.southam.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Dennis Bueckert

CATCH 22 FOR MEDICAL POT USERS

You can grow it or designate someone else to grow it for you ... but you 
can't get the seeds

You can legally grow marijuana if you're sick enough, or name a person to 
grow it for you, but you can't legally get the seeds under federal 
regulations announced Wednesday.

The new rules, to take effect at the end of the month, will make Canada the 
first country in the world with a regulatory system governing medicinal 
marijuana. But they don't address the key issue of supply.

The federal system will allow people with certain serious medical 
conditions to possess pot and cultivate it, or designate a person to 
cultivate it for them.

To qualify they must have a doctor's endorsement.

But the system provides no source of safe, tested marijuana for patients 
unless they are participating in a research program. Nor does it provide a 
source of tested seeds or cuttings to start a crop.

"Right now, so far as I'm aware, there is no legal source of seeds," 
conceded Judy Gomber, director general of Health Canada's office of 
controlled substances.

The regulations require doctors to make recommendations on dosage even 
though there is no way to know the potency of the pot being used by a given 
patient.

Doctors are being asked to endorse the use of marijuana in cases where they 
expect medical benefits, but federal officials admit there is little 
scientific evidence so far that pot actually has medical benefits.

Hugh Scully, past president of the Canadian Medical Association, attacked 
the apparent contradictions.

"We recognize that a regulatory scheme for the medicinal use of marijuana 
must exist," Scully said in a statement.

"These regulations are placing Canadian physicians and their patients in 
the precarious position of attempting to access a product that has not gone 
through the normal protocols of rigorous pre-market testing."

A senior federal official in Ottawa acknowledged that the new policy leaves 
unanswered questions, especially regarding supply, sale and distribution.

He said such gaps are to be expected in a ground-breaking program and 
promised problems will be dealt with as they arise.

"We're doing something that hasn't been tried before," he said.

Some merchants in Vancouver and elsewhere are openly selling seeds by mail 
order, but this remains illegal.

Health Canada had hoped to obtain a supply of tested seeds from the U.S., 
but negotiations with U.S. authorities have proven unsuccessful so far.

The department now has decided to obtain seeds seized by Canadian police 
forces in drug busts.

A first shipment of the confiscated seed is on its way to Prairie Plant 
Systems of Saskatoon, the company contracted to grow pot for the federal 
government.

The shipment was confirmed in Ottawa on Wednesday and was expected in Flin 
Flon, Man., within days, said company president Brent Zettl in an interview.

The firm is expected to deliver standardized and tested pot next year.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens