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The federal government would likely scrap its controversial medical
marijuana program if trials about to get underway conclude the drug has no
therapeutic benefit, Anne McLellan, the federal Minister of Health,
suggested yesterday.
Ms. McLellan also offered veiled criticism of Allan Rock, her predecessor
in the job, for approving the limited use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes before finding out if it had any scientifically proven value.
She was asked what would happen if the trials to be conducted by the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research and others found that marijuana did
not benefit patients, or that any benefits were offset by harmful
side-effects.
"As far as I'm concerned, we are a department of health. You work on the
basis of approving products, therapies, drugs that have a medicinal
benefit," she replied during a meeting with the National Post's editorial
board.
"If it doesn't have a medicinal benefit, I don't know why the department
of health would approve it as such."
The medical marijuana program, approved under Mr. Rock's watch, currently
provides exemptions from marijuana possession laws to about 500 people
suffering conditions ranging from AIDS to glaucoma.
Many swear that the drug provides relief from symptoms that no other
medicine offers.
Eric Nash, a licensed medical marijuana grower and part of the
stakeholders' committee that advises Health Canada, said yesterday that
Ms. McLellan's comments about the future of the program do not mean much.
"That [completing the trials] will take several years and she may not even
be health minister down the road," he said.
"In the meantime, the courts are setting the agenda.... Basically, it
really doesn't matter what she says.
"It really is a moot point."
He said he and his wife grow pot for multiple sclerosis sufferers and it
seems to have a "huge" benefit for them.
Regulators should approach marijuana like a natural remedy and not base
its legitimacy on a battery of trials as they would with a prescription
drug, Mr. Nash said.
A number of court rulings have backed demands of the chronically or
terminally ill for legal access to marijuana. One judgment led to an
announcement by Ms. McLellan last week that the government would,
temporarily at least, supply pot and pot seeds to medical marijuana users
through their doctors.
But the minister's lukewarm endorsement of the new service and details of
the plan left advocates of the drug largely unhappy.
Ms. McLellan stressed yesterday that there is no definitive evidence of
marijuana's benefits, and that her department is not in the business of
approving products whose benefit has not been proven.
She said Mr. Rock introduced the program out of compassion. She was asked
if approving medical marijuana first, then setting up trials, was turning
the process around backward.
"That would be up to you to determine," she said.
"I believe that as a department of health, it is important for us not to
approve products, devices, therapies without requiring the necessary
clinical trials that are, I think, more or less a given ... in this
country."
Author: Tom Blackwell
Source: National Post
Contact: letters@nationalpost.com
Website: National Post
Pubdate: Tuesday, July 15, 2003
marijuana program if trials about to get underway conclude the drug has no
therapeutic benefit, Anne McLellan, the federal Minister of Health,
suggested yesterday.
Ms. McLellan also offered veiled criticism of Allan Rock, her predecessor
in the job, for approving the limited use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes before finding out if it had any scientifically proven value.
She was asked what would happen if the trials to be conducted by the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research and others found that marijuana did
not benefit patients, or that any benefits were offset by harmful
side-effects.
"As far as I'm concerned, we are a department of health. You work on the
basis of approving products, therapies, drugs that have a medicinal
benefit," she replied during a meeting with the National Post's editorial
board.
"If it doesn't have a medicinal benefit, I don't know why the department
of health would approve it as such."
The medical marijuana program, approved under Mr. Rock's watch, currently
provides exemptions from marijuana possession laws to about 500 people
suffering conditions ranging from AIDS to glaucoma.
Many swear that the drug provides relief from symptoms that no other
medicine offers.
Eric Nash, a licensed medical marijuana grower and part of the
stakeholders' committee that advises Health Canada, said yesterday that
Ms. McLellan's comments about the future of the program do not mean much.
"That [completing the trials] will take several years and she may not even
be health minister down the road," he said.
"In the meantime, the courts are setting the agenda.... Basically, it
really doesn't matter what she says.
"It really is a moot point."
He said he and his wife grow pot for multiple sclerosis sufferers and it
seems to have a "huge" benefit for them.
Regulators should approach marijuana like a natural remedy and not base
its legitimacy on a battery of trials as they would with a prescription
drug, Mr. Nash said.
A number of court rulings have backed demands of the chronically or
terminally ill for legal access to marijuana. One judgment led to an
announcement by Ms. McLellan last week that the government would,
temporarily at least, supply pot and pot seeds to medical marijuana users
through their doctors.
But the minister's lukewarm endorsement of the new service and details of
the plan left advocates of the drug largely unhappy.
Ms. McLellan stressed yesterday that there is no definitive evidence of
marijuana's benefits, and that her department is not in the business of
approving products whose benefit has not been proven.
She said Mr. Rock introduced the program out of compassion. She was asked
if approving medical marijuana first, then setting up trials, was turning
the process around backward.
"That would be up to you to determine," she said.
"I believe that as a department of health, it is important for us not to
approve products, devices, therapies without requiring the necessary
clinical trials that are, I think, more or less a given ... in this
country."
Author: Tom Blackwell
Source: National Post
Contact: letters@nationalpost.com
Website: National Post
Pubdate: Tuesday, July 15, 2003