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. - --- MAP posted-by: Alex