Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jun 2015
Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN)
Copyright: 2015 The Leader-Post Ltd.
Website: http://www.leaderpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361
Authors: Geordon Omand and Terry Pedwell
Page: C9
Referenced: (R. v. Smith): http://mapinc.org/url/d2dzMbjW

SUPREME COURT SAYS MEDICINAL POT CAN BE SERVED UP MANY WAYS

The Harper government's power struggle with the Supreme Court of
Canada continued Thursday, as the health minister angrily denounced a
ruling legalizing pot brownies and other methods of consuming medical
marijuana..

"Frankly, I'm outraged by the Supreme Court," Health Minister Rona
Ambrose told reporters in Ottawa after the high court said patients
now can use cannabis tea, brownies, chocolate bars, hash, balms,
creams, lotions, tinctures, infused oils and salves.

Ambrose maintained that cannabis didn't become therapeutic "because
judges deemed it so."

"Judges, not medical experts, judges have decided something is a
medicine," she said.

Thursday's decision was a 7-0 ruling, and the court made a point of
attributing it to the entire court - something the justices do when
they want to underline a finding. It was the latest in a series of
high court rulings rebuking the Harper government's tough-on-crime
agenda, including unanimously rejecting the ban on providing
doctor-assisted death to mentally competent patients.

Until now, federal regulations stipulated that authorized users of
physician-prescribed cannabis could consume only dried marijuana. But
limiting medical marijuana use to dried pot "limits life, liberty and
security of the person" in two ways, the court said.

First, the prohibition on possession of cannabis in forms other than
dried pot places a person at risk of imprisonment when they wouldn't
face the same threat if they possessed dried marijuana buds.

It also exposes people with a legitimate need for marijuana to other
potential medical ailments, it stated. "It subjects the person to the
risk of cancer and bronchial infections associated with smoking dry
marijuana and precludes the possibility of choosing a more effective
treatment."

There is no connection between the prohibition on non-dried forms of
marijuana and the health of the patients who qualify for legal access,
the court said. "It is therefore difficult to understand why allowing
patients to transform dried marijuana into baking oil would put them
at greater risk than permitting them to smoke or vaporize dried
marijuana," the justices added.

There is no legal supply of cannabis derivatives - and the landmark
decision will trigger a sea-change in the direction of the medical
cannabis industry in Canada away from smoking by allowing a broad
range of new products.
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MAP posted-by: Matt