Pubdate: Wed, 03 Apr 2002
Source: Grand Forks Gazette (CN BC)
Page: 14
Copyright: 2002 Sterling Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.sterlingnews.com/Forks
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/525
Author: Paul J. Henderson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

TAYLOR SPREADS MEDI-JUANA MESSAGE

The city's well-known ex-mayor has garnered attention for years in support 
of medical marijuana and now he has a new shop, an improved grow unit for 
sale and he's even brought his message to the classroom.

Earlier this year Brian Taylor brought Medical Marijuana 101 to a college 
campus near you.  Taylor and partner, Barb St. Jean, completed a successful 
tour of Selkirk College sites around the Kootenays to help explain and 
discuss the laws and the pitfalls regarding the legal growing and smoking 
of marijuana for medical conditions.

In Taylor's report of the Kootenay tour to Selkirk administration he sums 
up the overall impression of those who participated as one of frustration.

"Patients that are currently using medical marijuana for symptom relief, 
from chronic illnesses that would qualify them under the new access 
regulations, cannot get legal access because the system has failed them," 
the report reads.

Despite the problems many have experienced, the use of marijuana as a legal 
medical alternative has come a long way.

"I really do think Health Canada is trying to make these things work," 
Taylor said.

Health Canada has outlined the rules to obtain an authorization to possess 
marijuana, a licence to produce and grow marijuana, as well as the legal 
information that patients and physicians need to know.

The biggest problem now according to Taylor is that doctors are 
stonewalling the system.  He says the Canadian Medical Association and 
insurance companies have warned doctors of risk and liability and 
recommended that they protect themselves by not giving approval for medical 
marijuana.

During the Medical Marijuana 101 tour, which visited the communities of 
Trail, Nelson, Grand Forks, Kaslo, Nakusp and Castlegar, Taylor heard the 
financial, legal and bureaucratic frustration of chronically ill 
individuals who are looking to marijuana as a last resort.

Taylor says one glaucoma sufferer living on $900 a month in disability was 
interested in growing his own medicine to replace the $600 a month in 
prescription drugs that he soon would have to pay for and could not afford.

Another chronically ill 55-year-old-man who Taylor says would clearly 
qualify under the Health Canada regulations got up the nerve to ask his 
doctor for a referral to a specialist for obtaining marijuana only to hear 
his doctor say, "I'll just pretend I didn't hear that."

The regulations currently spell out three categories of who can apply for 
marijuana possession.  All three applications require medical proof that 
conventional medicine has failed them.  The first category is for 
applicants who have a terminal illness with less than 12 months to live no 
matter what is killing them.  The second is for those who suffer from 
specific symptoms of illnesses like Multiple Sclerosis, cancer or AIDS. The 
third is the trickiest and requires not one but two medical specialists to 
declare conventional treatments haven't worked and pertains to chronic 
conditions like impotence or anorexia.

On the home-growing front, Taylor's newest personal growing unit (PGU) 
looks like a home entertainment unit complete with closing front doors.  It 
sells for about $2,500 at his newly opened shop on Donaldson near the SPCA 
and he is also working on a much smaller and more inexpensive version that 
he hopes to sell for under $1,000.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl