Pubdate: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 Source: Victoria News (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 Victoria News Contact: http://www.vicnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1267 Author: Sheila Potter Cited: The Vancouver Island Compassion Society http://members.home.com/thevicsweb/ Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada) POT CRUSADER OPTIMISTIC THAT TIMES ARE A CHANGIN' A Victoria resident is excited by the recent changes to federal medical marijuana regulations, but cautions that governments still have a way to go to make marijuana a practical medicine. "This summer and fall are really exciting. We are witnessing Canadian history unfolding here," says Ted Smith of the Vancouver Island Cannabis Buyers Club. Smith has been providing sick people on the Island with marijuana for five years. He has seen the struggles faced by people who are legally allowed to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. They are still challenged by police, get kicked out of apartments and often have had no legal way to acquire the drug, which they call their medicine. On July 4, federal Health Minister Allan Rock announced that new regulations for possessing and producing marijuana have been approved and will come into place on July 30. The new regulations are complex. Smith says he hasn't made it through the numerous clauses, but he likes the direction the federal government is going in. However, he cautions there are still flaws, especially the problem of supply. One of the more dramatic changes is that the government is going into the cannabis growing business. Prairie Plant Systems Inc. (PPS) of Saskatchewan will now grow a legal supply of medical marijuana. According to the federal Ministry of Health, PPS will produce a wide variety of quality marijuana, but Smith laughs at this idea. "The marijuana the government is growing is so low grade," he says, "We wouldn't even sell it...It doesn't have enough THC in it to be of medicinal value." Smith thinks that the government isn't interested in producing good quality marijuana to smoke because they would rather produce more pills containing THC sold by pharmaceutical companies. Not that Smith thinks pills are such a bad idea. "I am not against it," he says. "We need to explore all the different pills and options the plant has." However, he thinks that there is an unfounded paranoia in the government about smoking pot that is driving the regulations. The new regulations also boast that they've fixed the problems about the amounts of marijuana people are allowed to grow for their personal use. The new formulas in place are supposed to adjust for outdoor yields, which produce less THC per plant than indoor growing. However, Smith gives the impression that the people producing the formulas are not as familiar with yield, growing conditions and the amount a person can practically store for a year as he is. "It's really quite silly," he says of the indoor-production rule, where a person is allowed to store a 30-day supply. He points out that marijuana grows in a three-month cycle indoors. "Under their rules you can only grow a third of what you need." he says. There is also the continuing problem of the police's treatment of people who are authorized to use marijuana. There have been cases in the past where police were unaware of the medicinal-use exemptions, and have treated the sick people like criminals. Smith is not sure that the new regulations will change these attitudes. "The test will be when the police have to deal with it," he says. "Certainly the exemption process so far has not stopped police hassling people, taking their kids, disrupting their medicine from getting to them and stuff, so it's something that many of us are skeptical of it being much better under this system." Still, Smith commends Rock on his new regulations, saying Rock is stuck between public support and the courts on one hand and pressure from the American war on drugs on the other. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake