Pubdate: Sat, 10 Dec 2011 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Charlie Fidelman, The Gazette HIDDEN DISPENSARY HELPING TO FILL NEED The first thing patients get in the vestibule of a hidden Montreal medical marijuana centre is a wail-tagging welcome from a rescue border collie called Maybe. The inner sanctum - kitchen with stainless steel appliances and banner featuring a dove carrying a marijuana leaf - has a faint odour of pot. The baking menu on this day includes pumpkin honey cannabis cake using marijuana-infused olive oil. Welcome to a reincarnation of the Montreal compassion club, which has rejected "compassion" in favour of "dispensary" because patients have a right to medication, says Adam Greenblatt, head of the Montreal Medical Cannabis Access Society. "We started as a refugee dispensary - shortly after the raids," says Greenblatt, whose association operates the dispensary. It's among 30 such dispensaries across Canada with the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, and serving about 30,000 critically or chronically ill patients. "We don't take sworn oaths from notaries about pain," said Greenblatt, referring to to a Lachine compassion club that police busted last year for trafficking marijuana. Promoted as a harm-reduction alternative to smoking pot, the kitchen produces a range of edibles, extracts and tinctures, including pot-infused coconut oil and butter, brownies, cookies and granola bars, and it's run in part by patient volunteers. An authorized grower for his father, who has multiple sclerosis, Greenblatt's association recently manned a kiosk on medical marijuana at a Montreal family medicine forum, right next to the Health Canada booth promoting changes to the marijuana program. "We're getting more referrals through physicians than patients," Greenblatt says. "Once we've verified the paper work, we tell the patient where we are." Seeking input from stakeholders on improving its Marijuana Medical Access Program, Ottawa turned to compassion clubs whose activities predate the Health Canada program. "We're not legal, yet they are seeking our advice about the reforms," says Greenblatt, whose submission calls for community-based resource centres for patients and caregivers, much like the compassion clubs closed in the raids. Despite the legal grey zone, the centre is insured as a "medical marijuana dispensary" and it provides edible cannabis products for about 2,000 patients, mostly in Quebec and Ontario, plus serves about 50 patients locally. Edibles are sent in vacuum-packed plastic bags labelled according to dosage and particular strain of cannabis. If the centre gets a production licence under the new rules, "than we will in fact be entirely legal," Greenblatt said. Among the centre's "refugees" is Yves, 56, who is on a disability pension. He has a congenital intestinal malformation and Crohn's disease. Pot stopped his stomach cramps, inflammation and bleeds, and helps prevents emergency trips to the hospital, Yves says in a telephone interview. His health was in bad shape when someone referred him to Greenblatt. "I wanted to go to the (McGill) pain clinic, but it takes four years to get a rendez-vous. I was living in a state of fear" after the raids last year. "They took me in hand," he says of the dispensary, which tweaked his dose and put Yves in touch with an Ontario doctor who signed the Health Canada form for a $200 fee. "Now I forget that I'm sick sometimes," says Yves, who volunteers in the kitchen because he feels it's important to give back to society. Yves figures he has saved Quebec taxpayers thousands of dollars by using medical marijuana "instead of pills and hospitals." Greenblatt placed three types of marijuana in bowls next to the Health Canada product mailed to patients in gold-coloured bags. He knows his marijuana strains, Cannabis sativa and indica, and an estimated 60 cannabinoids (active ingredient in marijuana) and their spectrum of effects. "Doctors were coming to us in the forum because they don't know what to do for their patients," says Greenblatt, who bases his knowledge on a decade of experience with dozens of patients. The dispensary promotes education on effective cannabis use - for example, costeffective vaporizers where none of the active ingredients go up in smoke. For information on the dispensary, go to cannabisaccess.ca - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.