cannabisnews.com: Smoking Marijuana 










  Smoking Marijuana 

Posted by CN Staff on December 08, 2002 at 13:40:52 PT
By Wade Andrew 
Source: New Winnepeg.com  

When you think of a mother's duties, what comes to mind? Probably things like bandaging scraped knees, wiping runny noses and seeing the children off to school on time. For Rose Caisse, you can add rolling her son Andy's joints to her list of motherly responsibilities. Thirty-four-year-old Andy Caisse has Multiple Sclerosis, a degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system, and he is one of 666 Canadians (as of November 1, 2002) who can legally possess and smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes.
One of Caisse's MS symptoms is trembling in his hands. Smoking marijuana helps to control the tremors, but he has trouble rolling a joint, so mom helps out. "If I had to roll my own," Caisse says, he would drop so much pot on the floor that "my dogs would be stoned all the time." Caisse's sense of humour helps him deal with his illness, but something he doesn't find funny is the red tape he is faced with when trying to legally obtain his weed. The Canadian government loosened its pot laws in June 1999 to allow people with certain illnesses to legally possess marijuana, and after fighting through the 29-page application, Caisse got his clearance in November 2001. Health Canada issued him an ID card that allows him to possess up to 120 grams at any one time. At the same time they gave him a licence to grow his own weed, which he says is a joke. Caisse has been confined to a wheelchair since 1995, and lacks the energy and mobility to look after a complicated grow operation."It would be impossible to grow my own", he says. His mother agrees. "A sick person can't grow plants," she says. "They take on the ambiance of the person."So he has been forced to illegally obtain a substance that is legal for him to possess. When he first started smoking pot to ease his symptoms, his mother would buy it from local dealers at the neighborhood bar down the street. "I felt like a criminal," she says. "I'm 54-years-old and I was out buying marijuana." Still, Rose has no qualms about helping her son, something she says any mother would do. "I'm not ashamed to buy drugs for my son. I would go to jail for him," she says from the living room of the tiny central Winnipeg house she rents with her son.There are several different types of MS, and the symptoms can be very distressing. Some of Caisse's symptoms include tremors, poor appetite and sleeplessness, all of which are eased by smoking marijuana, he says. "Some days my hands tingle, some days I'm twitching severely," and smoking his average one-gram - or three joints - a day helps enormously, he says. Caisse, who claims to get no enjoyment from smoking pot aside from the medicinal benefits, refuses to take any of his prescribed medications, believing marijuana helps him more than anything. He says some of the needles his doctor gave him resulted in severe bruising, and one medication had him so hopped-up he was like the "Energizer bunny."Since Caisse started smoking pot, he has gotten it from a variety of illegal sources. But according to Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Regulations, a person with an authorization to possess marijuana can designate someone else to grow his pot for him. Not an easy task, says Caisse. The application process for the grower is complicated and intimidating, and the stigma associated with growing marijuana, even for compassionate reasons, is enough to scare most people away. But in May 2001, Caisse met Chris Buors at a "legalize marijuana" rally in front of the Manitoba Legislature. Buors is the founder of the Manitoba Compassion Club, an organization that sells pot to people with a medical need for the drug. Compassion Club members get a cut rate, a consistent quality, and Buors delivers; a much safer environment for Caisse to buy his pot, but it's still illegal. In 1998, Buors was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking, so he is ineligible to be a designated grower. However, in early 2002, Buors introduced Caisse to "Steve," who doesn't want his real name used, who agreed to be Andy's personal grower. Enter more frustration. Steve applied for his designated grower licence in July 2002, and Health Canada assured him it would take about two weeks to process. Two-and-a-half months and several phone calls later, Steve was told they couldn't issue his grow licence until Caisse renewed his possession licence. So in mid-November, when Caisse's licence came up for renewal, both licences finally arrived in the mail.Now Steve can legally grow for Caisse, but it still takes several months to cultivate useable bud from freshly planted cannabis seeds, so Caisse waits."It's frustrating for everybody," says Steve, a 49-year-old father and hobbyist gardener. "It's been legislated, it should be black-and-white."Steve says he finds the whole process "intriguing as well as extremely frustrating," and he would like to see the government take a clearer stance on the marijuana issue, though he doesn't smoke pot himself."They keep waffling all over the moral map," he says. Brant Cosens, a friend of Caisse's and a fellow MS sufferer, agrees. Cosens is in the process of trying to get his licence to smoke pot, but his neurologist has refused to sign the application. He is trying to convince her, but he doesn't hold much hope. His previous neurologist also refused. "He thinks the last wonder drug was penicillin," says Cosens. Cosens says he thinks doctors are afraid of damaging their professional reputations by writing "prescriptions for weed." Caisse may face a similar problem next year. His neurologist told him that next year he's not going to sign his renewal application, because he's afraid of losing his medical licence. Caisse is confident his family doctor will sign next year's papers, but it's one more frustration for a sick man who is supposed to avoid stress. Source: New Winnepeg.com (Manitoba)Author: Wade AndrewPublished: Sunday, December 8, 2002 Copyright: 2002 New Winnipeg.com Website: http://newwinnipeg.com/Contact: info newWinnipeg.com Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmWinnipeg Medical Marijuana Crusader Chargedhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13926.shtml Smoke Out the Politicianshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13880.shtmlOf Cannabis and Compassion http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10989.shtml

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Comment #2 posted by FoM on December 08, 2002 at 22:06:03 PT

Hi Naaps
I'm looking forward to what could happen this week in Canada. The news is always so slow in December. There never is much going on and it gets too slow for me because I like posting news. I hope they allow personal gardens. That would make me very happy and many Canadian's very happy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I read in a newsgroup that they aren't going to talk about Cannabis until the 12th and are going to talk about injection sites and issues around it tomorrow. I am not sure if the information is accurate but I thought I'd mention I read it.
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Comment #1 posted by Naaps on December 08, 2002 at 21:46:00 PT

Some Hope in Canada
While Andy Caisse has endured jumping through the punitive legal hurdles, the fact the his designated, licensed grower Steve, now is properly to entitled to produce cleaner, safer, more cost effective quantity medicine means his situation is improving. It is interesting to note that the Health Canada Medical Marijuana program now has over six hundred exemptees. At this rate of growth will the number exceed a thousand by next year? Actually, the Vancouver Compassion Club alone has over a thousand members, all of whom have doctor approval authorizing their medical use. Many more Canadians, whom don’t have legal exemption, nonetheless seek medicinal solace from cannabis. Supposedly tomorrow the House Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs will be releasing their final report. I have taken great pleasure in reading their hearings.The House Committee differs significantly from the Senate Committee that released its thorough, rigorous, and realistic final report back in September. The committee is comprised of actual Members of Parliament representing all the parties. Most loud and recognized is vice- chair MP Randy White of the Canadian Alliance Party. The chair of the committee is MP Paddy Torsney from the ruling Liberal party. The Committee’s mandate was to investigate all matters pertaining to Non-Medical Drug Use in Canada. Part way through the 18 months of study, after the defeat of the Martin decriminalization bill, their mandate more comprehensively included considering marijuana decriminalization. Unlike the Senate Committee, the House Committee traveled abroad to Europe, as well as visiting America, where Mark Souder, scared MP Dr. Hedy Fry by his vociferous, righteous, arrogant stance.Look for MP Randy White to voice dissent to some of the committee’s recommendations, other members of the committee from the Liberals and Bloc less stridently calling for more punitive measures. White often says, “I don’t call it harm reduction, I call it harm extension.”On Friday, December 13th, the Supreme Court of Canada is hearing the long awaited Caine constitutional challenge. My friend Randy Caine was arrested on the beach at White Rock back in 1992 for possession of a roach. He diligently fought it every step of the way, but could have merely paid a $100 fine and been done with it long ago. Now the Malmo-Levine and Clay cases have been appended to the challenge, respectively representing the sale and cultivation aspects of cannabis use. There is a significant possibility that the court will rule cannabis prohibition is contrary to the Canadian constitution.   As Randy Caine explains it, the arguments supporting the right of the individual to use and possess cannabis are lucid and rational, and must merely be conveyed to the erudite, rational judges. These people aren’t vested interest, shrill drug warriors; they are shrewd evaluators of legal argument, supported by proper science, not junk science with conclusions reached out of step with the evidence. This challenge has the potential to legalize cannabis in Canada.

House Special Committee Link
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