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MARIJUANA MEDICAL MADNESS

Canada is the only country in the world to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, supposedly to ease the suffering of people with terminal illnesses, as well as for chronic conditions as varied as AIDS to back ache.

Canada is also the only country in the world in which the government is directly involved in the production and supply of marijuana. In this regard, former Minister of Health, Allan Rock, opened up an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, last year in order to grow his "Rock Garden" of marijuana plants, which were to serve as a supply to those seeking its use for medical purposes. (See Reality, September/October 2001, "Confusion and Chaos - Canada's Marijuana Laws," p.1.)

Medical Profession Raises Objections

However, there are significant flaws in his plan. There are no studies to indicate the value of marijuana use for medical treatment. Marijuana contains approximately 400 chemicals that become combustible when smoked, producing more than 2000 impure chemicals. According to the US Institute of Medicine, marijuana smoke, like tobacco smoke, is associated, among other problems, with increased risk of cancer, lung damage and poor pregnancy outcomes.

As well, if there are any beneficial components of marijuana use, they are available in the approved drug, Dronabinol - so why is it necessary to actually smoke the drug? One can only conclude that the ultimate objective is the normalization of use of this drug in Canada.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Protective Association have told Canada's physicians not to sign forms approving patient requests for marijuana for medical use. These associations believe doctors will be held medically responsible for what amounts to a political decision by the government to allow marijuana use. That is, physicians believe they are being placed in an impossible position, having to judge the medical value of marijuana for their patients, without research to back it up. They believe marijuana should be subject to the same pre-market screening and regulations as any other pharmaceutical drug, before it reaches patients.

Canadian Medical Association President, Dr. Peter Barrett, stated on June 12, 2001:

…[if marijuana] is without the rigorous testing that other pharmaceutical products go through, physicians have no way to provide thorough and necessary information on proper dosage, marijuana's interaction with other drugs or its impact on other pre-existing medical conditions.

As a result, Mr. Rock's marijuana patch in Flin Flon, of which 250 kg has now been harvested, is sitting 360 metres underground, carefully monitored by the RCMP, who have no immediate plans to release the drug.

Another Problem - Rotten Pot

The medical profession's refusal to join in Mr. Rock's little plan to provide marijuana for so-called medical reasons is not the only problem. Anne McLellan, Mr. Rock's successor in the Department of Health, revealed, in early May, yet another problem with Mr. Rock's marijuana patch in the Flin Flon mine. The crop grown by the government is highly impure - containing 185 different varieties, consisting of a rainbow of varying potencies and impurities. It is scarcely the stuff that the Ministry of Health can distribute to ill patients, or give out for research purposes, as part of clinical trials, to determine whether marijuana actually serves any medical purposes at all.

The reason for the unsound marijuana crop is apparently because officials from the US Enforcement Agency refused to give its seed to Mr. Rock. As a result, the Canadian government and its federally sanctioned growers, Prairie Plant Systems, which received $5.7 million to grow the stuff, obtained their seeds from the police, who had confiscated them during the course of their law enforcement efforts.

Ms. McLellan has assured us, however, that the marijuana crop in Flin Flon isn't completely wasted because it is now being tested to find the best strain, so that a "quality standardized" seed can be used for the government's second crop …only in Canada!

As of April 5, 2002, the government has given permission for 205 Canadians to use marijuana for medical purposes. Of these, 137 have permission to grow their own pot. As well, 10 permits have been granted for people to grow marijuana on behalf of invalids who can't do it themselves.

How Canada Got in Such a Mess

Canadians have never had any say about whether marijuana should or should not be made available for medical purposes. That's no longer the Canadian way. Rather, this decision was made for them by three judges sitting on that most peculiar of all Canadian courts, the Ontario Court of Appeal. The judges of that court are notorious judicial activists who seem to believe they have been appointed to the Bench to rectify, improve and modernize Canadian society in keeping with their own philosophies. Certainly, the court made no findings that marijuana actually has any medical value, but the court apparently does not seem to need facts on which to base its decisions. It is alarming, too, that a lower court had made a finding that marijuana can cause pulmonary damage, which the higher court ignored. Instead, the Court of Appeal jauntily concluded that an individual's "security of person," in S.7 of the Charter of Rights would be violated if denied access to marijuana for medical purposes.

It is apparent that this conclusion of the Ontario Court of Appeal was not only in accordance with the views of then Minister of Justice, Anne McLellan, and Minister of Health, Allan Rock, but also of the Liberal government itself, since no Minister in Prime Minister Chrétien's Cabinet would ever act independently of the PMO. All of them must have found the Court of Appeal decision satisfactory, since no appeal of this absurd decision to the Supreme Court of Canada was made. Only decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada can bind the government to enforce a court ruling across Canada. Presumably, because there is a risk that the decision might have been overturned, an appeal was never launched. Hence, Mr. Rock, a true believer, began to happily set up his marijuana garden in the Flin Flon mine.

How much longer must the Canadian taxpayer put up with zealous ideological "operations" (of both the courts and the government)? Surely such actions indicate an intent to restructure Canadian society without any consultations with, or approval, of the public. It's a matter which requires a thoughtful response from the Canadian people.

Please write to:

Please strongly object to the provision of marijuana for allegedly medical purposes, when testing its use for such purposes has never been carried out. Also object to the government implementation of marijuana for medical use across Canada without any legal requirement to do so, i.e., without the decision of the highest court, the Supreme Court of Canada.

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