Pubdate: Fri, 25 Nov 2016 Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor Website: http://torontosun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457 Author: Sarah Hanlon Page: 27 WEEDING OUT VETS' MEDICAL NEEDS Holy smokes! Veterans are getting punished for the acts of some shady medical marijuana companies. Last week, Vice News broke a story about the rising costs of medical marijuana for veterans and it shed light on the reasons for the drastic spike. The biggest? Some legal cannabis producers are milking the system and actively recruiting veterans in order to max out their orders with only the most expensive cannabis strains - knowing it's up to the government to foot the bill on veteran prescriptions. When one savvy veteran caught on to his Health Canada-licensed producer hiding cheaper strains from the veteran menu, they called up the company and asked to see all the options. Multiple veterans told Vice the licensed producers asked why they enquired about cost and quality of the marijuana since it's the government who picks up the tab. (Translation: Us, the public.) Many people, including Jonathan Ziad - founder of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana - believes there have been instances of vendors increasing the price of cannabis in order to exploit the system. So let's step back and put this into perspective: imagine if Air Canada actively reached out to every veteran to encourage them to take a first-class trip to Japan because they were allowed to bill the government, whether they needed to go or not. That's what has happened here. Licensed producers found a way to squeeze the system - and yet police are raiding pot dispensaries trying to help people in desperate need of accessible marijuana and products for medical issues. Consequently, the government reimbursements for veteran medical marijuana have soared from $400,000 in 2013 to its current cost of $20 million - as noted in last week's report, a jump of 5,000% The government is now cracking down on our heroes who use medical cannabis. They will now suffer - not the opportunists who are profiting off the system. Veteran Affairs Minister Kent Hehr expressed his "shock" earlier this week that the government was reimbursing veterans for the medicine with "no policy in place" and promised to launch "a research project to clarify and contribute to evidence on the effect of cannabis on the health of our veterans." Hehr also stated that new limits on reimbursements for medical marijuana would be set to a maximum of 3 grams a day at a max cost of $8.50 a gram. Because a few greedy companies took advantage of a flawed system, the government is now going to restrict the types and cost of medicine for all veterans across the board. While yes, it's obvious not every veteran is in need of expensive weed, it's equally as obvious that some do. Starting in May, veterans with more serious ailments will have to apply for special exemptions if they need more or higher quality medicine. This crackdown will add hurdles to those who truly need higher doses and potency. The fact that the government will now waste money on researching whether cannabis is useful to veterans is frustratingly absurd because the spike in costs had little or nothing to do with the suitability or effectiveness of cannabis as a medicinal aid. (Memo to the government: the research on the medicinal and therapeutic uses of cannabis is already out there; simply Google it.) Better yet, you could start listening to the people you are serving. This whole problem started when companies told veterans what they needed - instead of asking the patients what their requirements were. Let's start treating our vets with the respect they deserve. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt