Pubdate: Fri, 11 Jul 2003
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Author: Colin Nickerson

CANADA SET TO SELL MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN WORLD FIRST

Canada will start selling cheap marijuana to seriously ill people seeking 
relief from pain, becoming the first country in the world to supply 
so-called medical marijuana directly to patients.

Acting under court pressure, Health Canada, the federal health department, 
said on Wednesday that 1650 pouches of marijuana were already packed and 
ready for sale to patients suffering from pain or nausea as the result of 
disease, cancer, AIDS and other serious sickness. Pot will also be sold to 
people not expected to live more than a year.

Supplies should begin moving by next week, and the marijuana grown under 
government contract will be more reliably potent than anything sold on the 
street.

"It's a splendid product, with a THC content of 10 per cent," Cindy 
Cripps-Prawak, director of the federal office of Cannabis Medical Access, said.

Tetrahydrocannabinol is the psychoactive chemical in pot; police say street 
marijuana has THC levels of 3 to 16per cent.

Health Canada also said it would provide marijuana seeds to "authorised 
persons" wanting to grow their own so long as the purpose was medicinal.

Officials said 582 ill individuals had already been approved for the 
program, although tens of thousands are expected to apply for the 
government marijuana, grown beneath artificial light in hydroponic vats.

Canada officially created its medical marijuana program in 2001, but the 
scheme quickly became bogged down in bureaucratic delays. In January an 
Ontario court gave Ottawa six months to start dispensing pot, ruling that 
federal drug laws made "seriously ill, vulnerable people deal with the 
underworld to get medicine".

The Government is appealing against the ruling.

The Health Minister, Anne McClellan, a skeptic of medical maijuana use, 
said that the government would conduct its own clinical trials of marijuana 
to gauge possible benefits.

Canadian medical organisations oppose the government program because of the 
lack of clinical trials.

"There is no scientific proof of either the effectiveness or safety [of 
marijuana] for short-or long-term use," said Dana Hanson, president of the 
Canadian Medical Association.

Wednesday's announcement comes six weeks after the Federal Government 
introduced a bill decriminalising possession of small amounts of marijuana 
and only days after it approved a trial safe injecting room in Vancouver 
for intravenous drug users.

The government price for medical marijuana will be $C5 ($5.50) a gram - 
less than half the average street price.

Sale of medical marijuana will be limited to people with chronic or 
catastrophic illnesses, including cancer, HIV or AIDS, arthritis and 
multiple sclerosis, or mystery ailments that cause serious pain or nausea 
but cannot be readily diagnosed.

Patients will be urged to eat or drink it rather than smoke it. Doctors and 
specialists must authorise patients to obtain marijuana.

The Boston Globe, The New York Times
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