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. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt