Pubdate: Thu, 18 Oct 2012
Source: Tribune, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012, Osprey Media Group Inc.
Contact: http://www.wellandtribune.ca/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx
Website: http://www.wellandtribune.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2807
Author: Allan Benner

TOO MANY PATIENTS GOING TO POT: MD

WELLAND - There are times when patients should be prescribed medical
marijuana.

But Dr. Pran Kundi is concerned that it's being prescribed far too
often.

"The thing that concerns me is that for every one deserving person who
requires medical marijuana, nine people sneak in," he told a group of
Niagara College nursing students during an educational conference he
organized Tuesday.

The problem, he explained, is the criteria for prescribing the drug
was not restrictive enough when it was first approved for medical use
in 2001.

For instance, he said the criteria allowing the drug to be prescribed
for severe forms of arthritis "is a big loophole."

"Who doesn't have pain? I have pain," he said. "If a person says they
have pain, especially back pain, there's no modality to disprove it."

Medical marijuana, he added, should only be prescribed for
terminally-ill patients.

"When a patient is having chemotherapy, but progressing for the worst,
you want to give everything in terms of supportive therapy and
marijuana may be indicated, and in terminal illness when people are
dying they have so much pain that we can relax the central nervous
system and they may feel the aspects of pain less."

Kundi said his concern is primarily based on the side effects of the
drug - a substance that contains 50% to 70% more carcinogens than tobacco.

"What is worse is that if your reflexes etcetera are inhibited, you
could cause an accident and kill somebody's child or somebody's
mother, or somebody's father," he said.

Instead of prescribing marijuana, Kundi said there are several
pharmaceutical drugs that have been derived from the plant, including
Nabilone and Butorphanol.

"There's a definite role for synthesized chemicals which are lacking
the impurities," he said.

But the homegrown marijuana many medical users smoke can lead to other
health problems, including lung cancer and oropharyngeal diseases.

There are currently more than 15,000 people licensed to grow medical
marijuana in Canada.
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