Pubdate: Fri, 25 Nov 2016
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Sarah Hanlon
Page: 18

WEEDING OUT VETS' MEDICAL NEEDS

TORONTO - Holy smokes! Veterans are getting punished for the acts of
some shady medical marijuana companies.

Last week, Vice News broke a story about the rising costs of medical
marijuana for veterans and it shed light on the reasons for the
drastic spike.

The biggest? Some legal cannabis producers are milking the system and
actively recruiting veterans in order to max out their orders with
only the most expensive cannabis strains - knowing it's up to the
government to foot the bill on veteran prescriptions.

When one savvy veteran caught on to his Health Canada-licensed
producer hiding cheaper strains from the veteran menu, they called up
the company and asked to see all the options.

Multiple veterans told Vice the licensed producers asked why they 
enquired about cost and quality of the marijuana since it's the 
government who picks up the tab. (Translation: Us, the public.) Many 
people, including Jonathan Ziad - founder of Canadians for Fair Access 
to Medical Marijuana - believes there have been instances of vendors 
increasing the price of cannabis in order to exploit the system.

So let's step back and put this into perspective: imagine if Air
Canada actively reached out to every veteran to encourage them to take
a first-class trip to Japan because they were allowed to bill the
government, whether they needed to go ornot. That's what has happened
here.

Licensed producers found a way to squeeze

the system - and yet police are raiding pot dispensaries trying to
help people in desperate need of accessible marijuana and products for
medical issues.

Consequently, the government reimbursements for veteran medical
marijuana have soared from $400,000 in 2013 to its current cost of $20
million - as noted in last week's report, a jump of 5,000%

The government is now cracking down on our heroes who use medical
cannabis. They will now suffer - not the opportunists who are
profiting off the system.

Veteran Affairs Minister Kent Hehr expressed his "shock" earlier this
week that the government was reimbursing veterans for the medicine
with "no policy in place" and promised to launch "a research project
to clarify and contribute to evidence on the effect of cannabis on the
health of our veterans." Hehr also stated that new limits on
reimbursements for medical marijuana would be set to a maximum of 3
grams a day at a max cost of $8.50 a gram.

Because a few greedy companies took advantage of a flawed system, the
government is now going to restrict the types and cost of medicine for
all veterans across the board.

While yes, it's obvious not every veteran is in need of expensive
weed, it's equally as obvious that some do.

Starting in May, veterans with more serious ailments will have to
apply for special exemptions if they need more or higher quality medicine.

This crackdown will add hurdles to those who truly need higher doses
and potency.

The fact that the government will now waste money on researching
whether cannabis is useful to veterans is frustratingly absurd because
the spike in costs had little or nothing to do with the suitability or
effectiveness of cannabis as a medicinal aid. (Memo to the government:
the research on the medicinal and therapeutic uses of cannabis is
already out there; simply Google it.) Better yet, you could start
listening to the people you are serving. This whole problem started
when companies told veterans what they needed - instead of asking the
patients what their requirements were.

Let's start treating our vets with the respect they deserve.
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MAP posted-by: Matt