Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jul 2014
Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2014 The StarPhoenix
Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/400
Author: Marie-Danielle Smith
Page: A6

WELCOME TO 'LEGALIZED DOPE-PUSHING'

OTTAWA - Licensed medical marijuana companies are sending
representatives to doctors' offices as part of a push to get hesitant
physicians to prescribe the drug more often.

It's a development that has dismayed Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti, the
president of the Canadian Medical Association, who says that a largely
unproven treatment is now being thrust upon doctors, leaving them
caught between at least some patients looking to score drugs and the
vendors looking to peddle them.

"I'm actually quite frightened," he said.

Francescutti said some of Canada's 13 licensed marijuana producers are
operating in the same way pharmaceutical companies do.

"They've got product they have to move. So they've hired the best
advertising firms," he said.

"Now, they've got very professional, well-dressed men and women
knocking on doctors' offices."

Saskatchewan Medical Association president Dalibor Slavik said while
the practice of knocking on doctors' doors isn't yet a problem in his
province, he shares Francescutti's concerns.

"Yes, we do need to be educated, but we need to be educated by an
impartial, non-biased person, not by a person who works for a company
that obviously sells the stuff for a profit," Slavik said.

Slavik and Francescutti said they don't think medical marijuana has
been put through stringent enough testing. Frankly, they said,
evidence that marijuana products are effective is lacking.

"There would have to be a clinical trial for its effect on depression,
for its effect on joint pain. You'd have to have probably a thousand
trials that would have to be repeated," Francescutti said. "If
marijuana is so magical, then how come the trials aren't out there?"

Francescutti acknowledged that a lack of funding could have been one
of the reasons those trials may not have been done previously.

"That could be part of it," he said.

Tweed, Canada's first publicly traded medical marijuana producer, has
hired three "academic detailers" to visit doctors' offices.

Mark Zekulin, executive vice-president of the Smiths Falls-based
company, said they are "out there hitting the pavement, introducing
who we are."

He said doctors get a lot of visits from many different pharmaceutical
companies, but "we're a little different." He said most doctors are
receptive and interested in learning more.

Tweed's director of business and medical development, Chris Murray,
said there is a lot of apprehension from doctors in terms of the "hard
sell from pharma reps."

"We are not out there putting a hard sell on medical marijuana,"
Zekulin said.

"There is information out there, and we're not making it up. It's to
make doctors aware of that information. How they want to integrate it
into their practice is up to them."

Dr. Alykhan Abdulla, president of the Academy of Medicine Ottawa,
which represents Ottawa physicians at all levels of government, said
he believes more than 90 per cent of physicians would be hesitant to
prescribe medical marijuana.

"The average family doctor has never learned how to prescribe medical
marijuana. It's not taught in medical school," said Abdulla, who has
prescribed the herb.

He said companies are not only sending representatives to lobby
doctors but also making calls, writing emails and sending faxes. He
receives two or three of these every week, he said.

"These people have an agenda; they want to sell it, they want to make
money. They're not pushy. They're professional people. =C2=85 They're
trying their best, but it's the wrong way to approach it."

When it comes to clinical trials, MedReleaf alone has 20 clinical
trials underway. It also draws data from a partner company, Tikun
Olam, which has treated thousands of patients under Israel's medical
marijuana system.

After seeing that data, many doctors "end up walking away converted,"
said CEO Neil Closner.

Tweed is not developing formal trials, but is building a database
based on the chemical contents of its various marijuana strains and
feedback from patients and doctors.

Francescutti said the industry as it stands now has "got nothing to do
with medicinal properties. It's got everything to do with people
wanting to smoke dope."

Barring extensive clinical study, "maybe the best thing that could
happen is Trudeau gets elected and he legalizes it," Francescutti
said, adding he doesn't think that would be the right thing, but it
would take the problem out of doctors' hands.

"We'd have a doped-up nation," he said.

"We'd probably have an increase in the sales of chips, so I guess I'd
buy some stocks in chips and nachos. That's about the only good that
would come of this."
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MAP posted-by: Matt