cannabisnews.com: Health Canada Set To Release Users' Manual for MMJ





Health Canada Set To Release Users' Manual for MMJ
Posted by CN Staff on July 20, 2003 at 12:01:56 PT
By Dean Beeby
Source: Canadian Press 
Health Canada is set to release a user's manual this week for a drug it has long opposed: marijuana. The unprecedented move has been triggered by the courts, which compelled Health Canada this month to begin distributing government-certified marijuana to a group of patients who take the substance to alleviate symptoms. The department must also release a manual on how to use its dope - but a daft version of the document shows patients will get little practical advice about ingesting marijuana and lots of warnings against using it at all. 
"Administration by smoking is not recommended," says the 59-page document, which is modelled on drug product monographs, standard for approved medicines. "Marijuana can produce physical and psychological dependence and has the potential for abuse." The March 30 draft document, obtained under the Access to Information Act, warns that smoking marijuana can be more dangerous to the lungs than tobacco, but provides patients no practical alternatives. "We're not recommending, in fact, that marijuana be used," Suzanne Desjardins, a Health Canada scientist who helped produce the manual, said in an interview from Ottawa. "It's a drug we don't recommend. If people want to use it, then we're saying, well, don't use it by smoking it. . . . There's no study that demonstrates (in) what form it should be used." The manual specifically advises against administering marijuana to children up to 16 years of age or to those 65 years or older because "the potential for harm is likely to outweigh benefits." Nursing and pregnant women are similarly urged to steer clear. Users who do choose to smoke are warned that "smoking should be gentle and should cease if the patient begins to feel disoriented or agitated ... naive smokers should take great care and be supervised." The document, headlined Information for Health Care Professionals, warns of potential panic attacks, psychosis and convulsions in some cases. "If disturbing psychiatric symptoms occur at the prescribed dosage, the patient should be closely observed in a quiet environment and supportive measures, including reassurance, should be used." Users are also advised that traces of marijuana remain in the urine for weeks and may turn up in drug tests carried out by employers or police. Apart from brief sections citing scientific studies on taking marijuana orally - baked in a chocolate cookie, for example - or rectally as a suppository, the manual offers no techniques to avoid smoking. Experienced, health-conscious users have long turned to tinctures and vaporizers as alternatives to smoking dope, which delivers the main active ingredient, THC, quickly but can harm the lungs. A doctor based in Berkeley, Calif., who uses marijuana or cannabis to treat patients, posted his own user's manual on the Internet last Friday, providing detailed advice on non-smoked forms of ingestion. "For both efficiency and health reasons, I recommend to all my patients that they set a goal of taking all (or almost all) of their cannabis medicines in non-smoked forms, mostly using edibles and drinkables, 'topping off' as necessary with vaporization," Dr. David Hadorn wrote on his Web site: http://www.davidhadorn.com/cannabis/CM-guideline.htmEric Nash, a Health Canada-approved grower of medical marijuana, provided his only customer with a vaporizer, which heats the substance to release THC for inhaling without any burning. "Vaporizers are very popular with medical users," he said from his Duncan, B.C., home. Nash is one of 32 growers in Canada each licensed to provide one approved medical user with marijuana. Tinctures can be produced by soaking marijuana leaves and buds in alcohol, which extracts the active ingredient. Drops of the tincture can then be used in cooking or under the tongue. Health Canada does not approve the use of marijuana, saying clinical studies are needed first to demonstrate whether it is effective as a medicine. However, court decisions have forced it to allow select patients to use marijuana on a compassionate basis. Desjardins said the dried marijuana that Health Canada will distribute through doctors to some of the 582 approved medical users will have a standard dose of 10 per cent THC. The cost will be $5 a gram, much less than on the street. The material, grown under contract by Prairie Plant Systems in Flin Flon, Man., and available in 30-gram bags, was originally intended only for clinical trials. Direct distribution to patients, however, could be cut off within weeks as the federal government mounts a court challenge of the order requiring it to be a supplier. The Health Canada user's manual, which will be sent to doctors and posted on the Internet this week, will be accompanied by a two-page information sheet for patients written in layman's language, Desjardins said. None of the Prairie Plant Systems marijuana can be distributed until the document is made available, she said. Complete Title: Health Canada Set To Release Users' Manual for Medical MarijuanaSource: Canadian Press Author: Dean BeebyPublished: Sunday, July 20, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Canadian PressRelated Articles & Web Sites:Health Canadahttp://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/Dr. David Hadorn: Cannabis Reportshttp://www.davidhadorn.com/cannabis/Marijuana Research To Continue Despite Troubleshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16905.shtmlToronto MD Quits Medical Marijuana Committeehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16873.shtmlMD Resigns From Health Canada Over Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16870.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 21, 2003 at 16:22:24 PT
News Brief -- Associated Press
Journalist Fired for Bogus Stories Hired To Write on Cdn Pot LawJuly 21, 2003NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Glass, a writer who was fired from the New Republic magazine for fabricating stories, is being given another chance by Rolling Stone, another magazine he wrote fabricated material for.Glass has been assigned a story on Canadian marijuana laws, Stu Zakim, a spokesman for the magazine, said Monday. The assignment was first reported by New York magazine.A previous story that Glass wrote for Rolling Stone resulted in a lawsuit. Drug Abuse Resistance Education or D.A.R.E., an anti-drug program, sued the magazine in 1999 over Glass's story about the group, part of which he admitted making up.Zakim said Rolling Stone owner Jann Wenner felt it was worth giving Glass another chance. Wenner himself was not available for comment."He's a good reporter for this kind of story," Zakim said. ``Jann trusts his gut and believes that this is the right thing to do. It's the beauty of being the owner of a company."Glass was fired from the New Republic in 1998 after admitting to fabricating stories for that magazine and others where he freelanced.This spring, Simon & Schuster published a novel by Glass, The Fabulist, an autobiographical — but invented — account of his rise and fall at The New Republic. 
Copyright: 2003 Associated Press
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Comment #6 posted by Virgil on July 20, 2003 at 14:08:41 PT
Just more disingenuous nonsense
Health Canada does not approve the use of marijuana, saying clinical studies are needed first to demonstrate whether it is effective as a medicine.Jack Herer's book in Chapter 6 - http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch06.html -tells how the pill companies got the federal government to stop all research in 1976 because of the loss freely grown cannabis medicines would cause to the pill industry. To say there are no studies is first, another whopper of a lie and second, research was stopped by prohibitionist/Nazi design. They ended the research and lie about their being no research when cannabis could have been fully mined for the the medical value that it is. It is like the Lincoln quote where a defendant that killed his mother and father ask for mercy because he is an orphan.Anyway in Chapter 6 Jack Herer says- Some 10,000 studies have been done on cannabis, 4,000 in the U.S., and only about a dozen have shown any negative results and these have never been replicated. The Reagan/Bush Administration put a soft "feeler" out in September of 1983 for all American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries. 
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on July 20, 2003 at 13:43:23 PT
Daft Makes Sense
adj. daft·er, daft·est Mad; crazy. Foolish; stupid. 
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Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on July 20, 2003 at 13:14:29 PT
Journalists are becoming educated
Tinctures, vaporizers and oils. Wow. The next thing you know, the New York Times will discover the Volcano. It's going to happen, the only question is when.
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Comment #3 posted by afterburner on July 20, 2003 at 12:50:33 PT:
I Said It Before, and I'll Say It Again:
Use medical cannabis patients for the studies Health Canada and the CMA claim we so desperately need! Recommending that patients over 65 not use medical cannabis, reduces effective palliative care, like the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana [ http://www.wamm.org/ ] offers.It sounds like a "daft version" to me.ego transcendence folows ego destruction, when the Canadian government, and especially "Health" Canada, takes their medical responsibilities toward sick and dying patients seriously, do no harm.
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on July 20, 2003 at 12:27:43 PT
FoM- Draft version
Whatever Health Canada mails out will be of historical value because it is the first mailing and the fact that there will be so few. Take care of these rare hysterical/historical documents. It would be a good item for E-bay.Nazi Anne has reduced Health Canada to a laughing mess. It is all so revealing, and a great sweep will be given to politicians like her soon. Her evaluation as Health Minister is F and Anne is a symtom of Canadian political disease. Nazi Anne did not get her name mentioned in the article. I guess it would be to inflaming and violate the silence practices of the prohibitionist machine.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 20, 2003 at 12:14:18 PT
Question
What is a rough daft version?
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