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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

It's simple; legalize marijuana

By: Editorial

Posted: 11/1/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

(DALE CUMMINGS)

Doctors who know a thing or two about the medicinal value of marijuana believe people with chronic diseases should have access to pot to relieve pain. In Canada, however, those doctors are few and most physicians won't sign authorizations for patients who need marijuana to relieve suffering. So Canadians suffer, unnecessarily.

Ottawa began regulating medicinal marijuana in 2002 but little relief has come of it. The Harper government, after an Ontario court earlier this year struck down the overly complicated process for approving medicinal marijuana, moved to simplify access. The government wants to pull Health Canada's approval from the doctor-patient relationship, while licensing commercial growers. A Canadian consortium of clinicians and researchers says physicians can't be blamed for refusing to become solely responsible for authorizing medical marijuana use by patients, who must then seek out a legal supply, or grow their own. The consortium says it agrees with much of Ottawa's plans, but patients should also be able to grow their own, under inspection.

Doctors, it says, won't write prescriptions for a drug that has not been clinically tested and is not a regulated pharmaceutical. Ottawa used to fund research but stopped, expecting the private sector to take over; something the consortium says will never happen because the economics do not support such a business decision.

Ottawa has won an indefinite suspension of the Ontario court's decision, which gave the federal government 90 days to devise a new system. The Harper government intends to engage public hearings and an expert panel to strike a new system, which means patients -- some of whom are palliative -- should brace for endless delay.

It is all entirely unnecessary. Successive courts have found marijuana, enjoyed recreationally by thousands of ordinary Canadians, is no more dangerous and perhaps less so than alcohol. The rational thing to do is decriminalize weed. It is also the humane thing to do, so those in chronic pain can smoke legally and without fear of a bureaucracy exacerbating the agony of life-altering illness.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 1, 2011 A12

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