Pubdate: Mon, 21 Apr 2003
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2003, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Dean Beeby / Canadian Press

HIGH-POTENCY, HARD-TO-GROW POT TOO MUCH TROUBLE, OTTAWA SAYS

A strain of government-certified marijuana is extremely potent but 
difficult to grow and eventually will be abandoned as too much trouble, 
officials say.

The flowering tops or buds of the strain, grown for Health Canada in an 
otherwise-unused mine in Flin Flon, Man., contain 20 per cent to 25 per 
cent THC, the most active ingredient of marijuana, laboratory results show.

U.S. tests on marijuana seized by U.S. police forces suggest that ordinary 
street marijuana averages about 5-per-cent THC, with sinsemilla -- 
considered the champagne of weed -- averaging about 10 per cent.

But the highly potent Flin Flon strain -- one of two official strains that 
together produced a crop of 244 kilograms last fall -- is tough to grow.

"We don't want high-maintenance plants," said Cindy Cripps-Prawak, chief of 
Ottawa's medical-marijuana program. "It's still unclear to me whether or 
not that is going to be the strain we're going to continue with."

The second strain is producing a respectable THC content, as well, with THC 
content of 13 per cent to 18 per cent. Those levels are more in line with 
the needs of clinical trials, Ms. Cripps-Prawak said.

"By and large, the researchers have told us they're interested more in the 
lower-range plants, the lower-range THC content" of about 15 per cent or 
less, she said in an interview from Ottawa.

Health Canada has said it will not make any of its marijuana available 
directly to needy patients, because it wants scientific proof of its 
effectiveness.

Instead, patients permitted by Health Canada to use marijuana must grow 
their own or have someone else grow it for them.

If Health Canada agrees to abandon its high-potency strain, it would be 
another setback in a problem-plagued project to grow standardized marijuana 
in Canada for medical trials that would determine whether the drug offers 
benefits -- such as pain relief -- to the chronically ill.

Other setbacks are outlined in documents obtained under the Access to 
Information Act.

Prairie Plant Systems Inc. of Saskatoon, which in 2000 was awarded a 
five-year, $5.75-million contract to grow a government crop, has failed to 
deliver acceptable placebo marijuana.

The contract called for 50 kilograms of placebo product, containing less 
than 0.1-per-cent THC, to be delivered last year. But the company could not 
grow marijuana with so little THC. The company is considering whether to 
use chemicals to remove the active ingredient in some of the crop.

Researchers need a placebo product for trials to demonstrate whether THC is 
effective in alleviating some medical conditions.

The contract also required delivery last year of 370 kilograms of regular 
product, but Prairie Plant Systems could produce only 244 kilograms.

The project had a rocky start when the company was unable to acquire 
U.S.-government-approved seeds from the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 
Bethesda, Md. Instead, it had to rely on 10,000 seeds seized by Canadian 
police forces.

Only a third of the seeds sprouted, producing 185 varieties of wildly 
varying THC content of little use to researchers, who require a 
standardized product.
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MAP posted-by: Alex