Pubdate: Fri, 17 May 2002
Source: Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1248
Author: Chris Donald

DRUGS: MARIJUANA STRENGTH A SMOKE SCREEN

Dear Editor,

Recently Health Canada has been claiming that the cannabis produced for 
medical uses by Prairie Plant Systems has so many strains that it is 
unusable, but they will not deny that a blend of the strains that could be 
delivered to patients would meet the 6% THC standard that is stipulated in 
their contract with PPS.

There is no evidence that the cannabis they have is weak, only that it is 
varied, which would actually guarantee that any patient receiving a blend 
receives other medically tested and effective cannabinoids (like CBD: 
cannabidiol) at consistent levels, something that cannot be said of many 
pure strains.

While this spurious and demonstrably hollow excuse for shelving the 
court-mandated compassionate use program is being used on a gullible media 
in Canada, a study in the US has just found that the NIDA-supplied cannabis 
strain used in the US is so weak patients wont smoke it, and some 
researchers say a stronger strain is needed for any valid scientific 
testing. This is the same strain that Health Canada claims they needed to 
obtain seeds from to produce a standardized, high-potency crop in Canada.

Does anything Health Canada says on the issue make any sense at all, or are 
they just making up excuses as they go along for politically-motivated 
decisions that fly in the face of superior court decisions?

Something stinks at Health Canada when it comes to the court-mandated 
cannabis medical access program, and I hope that further attention is 
focused on this issue for the sake of the tens of thousands of medical 
patients in this country who are otherwise forced to take opiate-based 
prescription pills every day that are commonly called "junk" on the street, 
and with good reason, considering the side effects.

Chris Donald

Dartmouth, NS
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MAP posted-by: Alex