Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2002, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Carolyn Abraham
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

SEIZED POT PACKS PUNCH, OTTAWA FINDS

But Patients Fuming At Health Canada Over Supply Delays

They may have come from a meadow in British Columbia -- or a well-lit 
basement in Brampton, Ont.

But whatever their origins, two strains of marijuana have been selected, 
from hundreds of others, as possible candidates for clinical research in 
Health Canada's beleaguered program to investigate and supply cannabis as 
medicine.

Both varieties pack a punch, sources say, with a level of THC, marijuana's 
key active ingredient, of 10 percent and up. The strains have been cloned 
to produce plants in large quantities.

To date, Health Canada has been unable to beg, buy or borrow marijuana 
seeds or plants from any legitimate source -- including the U.S. National 
Institute on Drug Addiction or the Netherlands.

The federal department has instead had to rely on dope seized in drug busts 
across the country to support its medicinal pot plot in an abandoned 
Manitoba mineshaft.

Although the final decision on ideal strains has not been made, the two 
candidates to emerge from the bags of illegal weed are the first signs of 
progress in months.

"It is progressing well," said Gillian Lynch, director general of Health 
Canada's Drug Strategy and Controlled Substances Program, who confirmed 
last week that "we are looking at a couple of strains."

Any approved harvest from the government's year-old pot-growing operation 
in Flin Flon will be used in clinical trials to assess the safety and 
effectiveness of marijuana in treating symptoms associated with diseases 
such as AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

But the program, on which the government is spending $5.7-million, was 
originally designed to supply the drug to all sick Canadians medically 
qualified to possess it.

Now, however, Ms. Lynch said that aside from approved strains, the bulk of 
the pot grown to date -- more than 250 kilograms worth -- will be used only 
for non-human research.

Patients anxious for a steady supply of marijuana are meanwhile fuming over 
the delays.

Eight Canadians are heading to court in September to have the program's 
restrictive regulations struck down and the marijuana grown in Flin Flon 
turned over to patients by year's end.

Toronto lawyer Alan Young, who is heading up the case, said the bureaucracy 
at Health Canada has come up with excuses to delay its release.

"The bureaucracy never wanted this program, it's too much work, and I think 
there's been some intimidation that if Health Canada started distributing 
it, the Americans would crack down on customs," Mr. Young said.

"It's really a shame to invest so much money to grow this much marijuana, 
which far exceeds the needs of a couple of clinical trials."

Like some government critics, Mr. Young suspects that Health Minister Anne 
McLellan, who inherited the file from her predecessor Allan Rock, had cold 
feet about moving ahead with a pot program.

This spring, Ms. McLellan said the drug's delivery would be delayed for 
several months because of the inconsistent strength and wide variety of the 
plants grown.

Some reports implied that the Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc., 
which won the contract to run the Flin Flon pot operation, had bad, or 
impure, weed on its hands.

In response, PPS president Brent Zettl, who was asked by Health Canada not 
to speak to reporters, wrote a letter to the Health Minister, that was 
leaked to the news media, defending the operation and the product it aims 
to produce.

Mr. Young said the issue of the "impure strains" being unsafe is a "red 
herring," particularly since all the marijuana in the mine is being grown 
in a clean, secure environment. "The marijuana they're sitting on is light 
years safer than what's currently available to medicinal users," Mr. Young 
said.

Ms. Lynch explained that the company has been documenting its operating 
procedures to ensure the pot is produced according to good manufacturing 
practices.

As well, she said Health Canada is working with the company to conduct a 
chemical analysis of the various plant strains. "You want to make sure 
you're getting a level of consistency," Ms. Lynch said.

She refused to offer a date as to when the first approved harvest might 
reach clinical trials. She said, however, that she realized many sick 
Canadians are waiting for it.

"We are moving ahead as quickly as we can," she said. "But we are taking a 
responsible approach."

This is little comfort to people such as Alison Myrden of Burlington, Ont., 
one of the 806 Canadians licensed to possess marijuana for medical purposes 
and one of the eight now suing the government.

Ms. Myrden, a former corrections officer who suffers from multiple 
sclerosis, had bought marijuana from the Toronto Compassion Centre club 
since 1997 to relieve pain.

But earlier this week, Toronto police raided and shut down the 
organization, which sold cannabis to 1,200 ailing Ontarians. Four people 
were arrested on trafficking charges, in part because it remains illegal 
for people to sell pot to the sick, even though it is legal for many of 
them to use it.

"I don't know what I am going to do -- I've never been able to grow it 
myself," said Ms. Myrden, who has federal permission to cultivate her own 
pot plants.

"The government is forcing me to go out on the streets. If I don't find a 
source on the black markets, I'm back to taking 32 pills and 600 milligrams 
of morphine a day."
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MAP posted-by: Tom