cannabisnews.com: Patients Gripe About Ottawa's Medical Marijuana





Patients Gripe About Ottawa's Medical Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on December 08, 2003 at 15:32:41 PT
By The Canadian Press 
Source: Canadian Press 
Ottawa -- Health Canada says it will provide medical marijuana to authorized patients on a long-term basis, but patients aren't cheering. Instead, they're upset that the government will continue to strictly limit local growing operations, forcing patients to obtain government pot which they consider inferior and overpriced."This is not going to help the sick people across Canada, it's only going to hurt them even more, because it's only going to push us to the black market," said Marco Renda, a medical pot user.
The latest version of the medical pot regulations came Monday in response to an Ontario ruling last fall which said the existing marijuana access rules were unconstitutional.In that decision last October, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered the government to provide a legal source of pot for authorized patients.Health Minister Anne McLellan responded by introducing an interim plan, under which patients could obtain pot from Health Canada.That contradicted McLellan's earlier statement that she would not release any marijuana until it had been proven beneficial in clinical trials.Now McLellan has effectively made the interim plan permanent, entrenching it in regulations. Clinical trials will continue, but the provision of pot to patients won't wait until results are in.Under the new rules, it will be acceptable for a patient to pay his or her supplier, and the price is left for them to negotiate.But the rules will continue to prevent a grower from supplying more than a single patient, and to prevent more than three patients from cultivating together."This is absolutely unacceptable," said Alison Myrdon, who uses marijuana to ease pain associated with multiple sclerosis."Now I can't grow with my friends, I was hoping to start a collective grow here in the country. We can not only save money but then safety wouldn't be an issue." Health Canada currently has a pot-supply contract with Prairie Plant Systems of Saskatoon, but Myrdon said the government pot costs $150 an ounce while she can obtain it on the black market for $100 an ounce.The new regulation contains some minor changes in the procedure for obtaining approval for marijuana access. One class of patients which had previously required signatures from two medical specialists will now require only one signature. Currently there is little scientific evidence that marijuana has therapeutic benefits, but that could be due to scant funding for marijuana research. Many patients say it helps them deal with nausea, pain and lack of appetite. Source: Canadian Press Published: December 08, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Canadian PressRelated Articles & Web Sites:Canadians for Safe Access http://www.safeaccess.ca/The Medical Marijuana Missionhttp://www.themarijuanamission.com/Court Eases Medical Marijuana Ruleshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17503.shtmlMarijuana Ruling a Victory For The Illhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17498.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by Sam Adams on December 08, 2003 at 18:57:50 PT
Mayan - zero tolerance
Zero tolerance in schools really isn't any suprise, is it? Once you think about the real reasons that the government loves the drug war. Zero tolerance is the ultimate! Ban a kid from school for a year, and his parents still pay taxes anyway! Beautiful! I'm surprised they don't kick out a good 10-20% per year.
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Comment #8 posted by Virgil on December 08, 2003 at 17:45:41 PT
A little off target on comment6
I think I could have put up the line and people would write their own mental comment. The idea of scant funding is not true either. Walters says he has 10,000 studies saying laughing grass is no better than dirt and that is not scant funding for research. Dankhank has 1500 studies on his Cannabis Research Library CD.The problem is not funding. The problem is attitude by the federal government. Someone might undertake to see how much each of these studies cost, but with the new secrecy and the bureaucrats being paid just to say "It is a matter of national security," that is not likely.Just think how different that subject would be covered if it were Daniel Forbes or Dan Gardner doing the reporting. It makes me wonder if The Canadian Press is one of Rupert Murdoch's holdings.
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Comment #7 posted by mayan on December 08, 2003 at 17:40:00 PT
Zero "Common Sense"
Here's an unrelated story. An American school with a "zero-tolerance" policy on drugs has suspended a pupil for a year for having over-the-counter Ibuprofen tablets... Student's one-year headache:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/08/1070732116699.htmlThe way out is the way in...An open Letter to the President of the United States -
By 9/11 Widow Ellen Mariani:
http://www.septembereleventh.org/topstories/2003-11-27-mariaini.php9/11 In Never-Neverland - Widow's Bush Treason Suit Vanishes in Blink of Media Eye: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00040.htm9/11 Victim's Wife Files RICO Case Against GW Bush:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0311/S00261.htm9/11 Prior Knowledge/Government Involvement Archive: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledge 
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Comment #6 posted by Virgil on December 08, 2003 at 17:19:07 PT
Scant my ass
Currently there is little scientific evidence that marijuana has therapeutic benefits, but that could be due to scant funding for marijuana research. Many patients say it helps them deal with nausea, pain and lack of appetite.The pill companies might test their experiments on 3000 people and have the rubber stampers over at FDA, who they are more and more responsible for funding, send it out to the public to see if they can keep it on the market without getting sued.To say that there is scant knowledge and throwing the word "scientific" in front of it is a lie. We know it is not going to kill you. We know it is not going to eat your liver up. We know it is not going to react with the pills that the pharmas are experimenting with in people's bodys.Just what we do not need. More flavors of propaganda. I do not think Canadians like Canadian propaganda much less it finding favor here.Scant my ass. Good journalism on the cannabis issue is scant.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on December 08, 2003 at 17:08:00 PT
gloovins
I'm sure it will go on until the students win the lawsuit. The lawsuit will be the eye opener I think.
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Comment #4 posted by gloovins on December 08, 2003 at 16:58:58 PT
Goose creek S Karolina just wont go away. MMM, why
?Raid might have broken drug-dog rules
Video shows Goose Creek police using canines in school sweep, apparently violating procedure
The Associated PressCHARLESTON — The Goose Creek Police Department appears not to have followed its own rules on using drug dogs in its guns-drawn raid at Stratford High School last month.A videotape the Police Department released shows a police dog passing close by students who had been forced to kneel on the floor during the Nov. 5 raid. It also captures an officer lecturing students as that part of the raid ends.“If you’re an innocent bystander to what has transpired here today, you can thank those people that are bringing dope into this school. Every time we think there’s dope in this school, we’re going to be coming up here to deal with it, and this is one of the ways we can deal with it,” the unidentified officer says.More than 100 students were in the hallway that morning as a police dog passed close by, barking and excitedly sniffing their backpacks. At one point, the dog grabs a backpack with its mouth and shakes it. At another time, the dog jumps briefly on its hind legs onto his handler as they check students huddling in an alcove.The department’s procedure on “illegal narcotics detection” states, “Only after the on-scene supervisor has cleared the area of all personnel will the canine enter and conduct an illegal narcotics detection.”The tape shows Goose Creek police officer Jeff Parrish and Major, a Czechoslovakian shepherd, entering the hallway.Jim Watson, secretary of the North American Police Work Dog Association, says Goose Creek’s K-9 unit is certified. Watson won’t comment on the Stratford search, which found no drugs, but says he knows Parrish and Major.“Jeff is nationally certified, and he has a helluva good dog. He has excellent control of the dog,” Watson said.Major is an extremely sociable dog that “loves to search for narcotics,” Watson said.Barking during a drug search isn’t a threat, Watson said. Dogs are taught to treat finding drugs as a game of hide and seek.“Why is a dog barking?” Watson said. “It’s not because it wants to bite someone. He just wants to play that game.”Some dogs are trained as passive alert dogs and will sit when drugs are found. Others are aggressive alert canines and bark or take other actions.“The Supreme Court has ruled you can search a person with a passive alert dog,” said Cpl. Louis Reed of the Charleston Police Department. “We have a passive alert dog, but we still don’t search people because of the possibility of someone saying something happened to them or that they felt threatened.”Other agencies, including Reed’s, wouldn’t allow police dogs to go near children during drug sweeps.“We don’t want people to say they were threatened by the dog,” Reed said.Students could stare, make catcalls or provoke a dog in other ways, he said. While Reed won’t comment on the specifics of the Stratford High sweep, “it’s not how my unit would have done it,” he said.In a lawsuit filed Friday, students say they felt frightened as the dog passed by, and they say the dog was unruly and appeared to be unresponsive to commands.Charleston’s prosecutor last week turned an investigation into the raid over to state Attorney General Henry McMaster.Apart from a surveillance camera that triggered the national reaction to the raid, a police officer videotaped the incident. The Post and Courier of Charleston obtained a copy of that tape under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.That recording begins seconds after a team of Goose Creek officers sealed one of Stratford’s hallways. Two officers can be seen with their guns drawn“Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” an officer yells as students fall to the floor. “Hands on your head, hands on your head, do you understand?”A few minutes later, a voice on a loudspeaker says, “All right, bring the dogs down.”Goose Creek principal George C. McCrackin is heard saying: “All right, the dogs are coming through. Just stay still.”
 
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Comment #3 posted by escapegoat on December 08, 2003 at 16:02:12 PT
HC screws up, pot legal again in Ontario
December 8, 2003					FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASETHE WINTER OF MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION - COURTESY OF HEALTH CANADATORONTO - Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis is happy to inform consumers that, because of Health Canada's failure to implement constitutional Medical Marijuana Access Regulations, wide-open marijuana
legalization is back in Ontario!"The police will likely still have their 'business as usual' public relations line, but since Health Canada has defied the order of the Ontario Court of Appeal by not allowing a grower to supply multiple patients, as ordered, the MMAR is unconstitutional," said Tim Meehan, communications director of OCSARC."Because it's unconstitutional, that means that according to the Parker decision by the same court in 2000, the possession of marijuana law is dead once again."OCSARC reminds people that while they might still be arrested and prosecuted by police and prosecutors who refuse to acknowledge the status of the law, they may seek substantial financial compensation later. "This is a notice to police that while they do have the power to arrest harmless marijuana smokers, they will be doing so at their own peril. Cannabis consumers will not allow themselves to be treated as second class citizens, and many will be armed with legal information and representation in case the harassment continues," said Meehan.-30-OCSARC (Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis) is a Toronto-based organization working to end prohibition and promote reasonable and responsible regulation and quality assurance in the cannabis market. Visit us online at ocsarc.org
The Winter of Marijuana Legalization in Ontario - thanks to Health Canada
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on December 08, 2003 at 15:55:34 PT
Will They Put Restrictions On The Number of Plants
Will 3 people be allowed to grow as much as they feel they can handle or will they restrict that too?
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Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on December 08, 2003 at 15:52:21 PT
Wasn't there a law under Hitler...
Not more than three patients can cultivate together?Wasn't there some law passed by Hitler that not more than three Jews could travel together?Or am I confusing it with something else? 
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