Posted on 08/21/2002 6:28:15 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan must be thankful she is not a judge on the Supreme Court of Canada. As a judge, she would have to make a decision. But as a cabinet minister faced with severely ill Canadians awaiting a federal supply of medicinal marijuana, she looks desperately to the wisdom of -- who else -- the judges.
This is rescue work, plain and simple, for a government grown too cowardly to make hard choices. It is not the first time; Ottawa recently scuttled to the courts hoping for an escape hatch on gay marriage. But it is all the more galling given Ms. McLellan's role in creating the Catch-22 in which people with AIDS, cancer patients and others find themselves.
As a result of a ruling two years ago by the Ontario Court of Appeal, it is legal for terminally ill people to use marijuana for pain relief. Yet the Criminal Code makes it illegal for them to buy the drug.
Once, the government understood that its leadership was required to extricate the very sick from this bind. It was none other than Anne McLellan, in her earlier job as justice minister, who said she would not appeal the Ontario court's ruling. Instead, she created an exemption for the ill people in the criminal law. Then the Health Department, under Allan Rock, spent $5.7-million to grow marijuana in a Flin Flon mine shaft, run clinical studies and supply sick people with the drug.
The marijuana was to have been available by last January. More than 250 kilograms of cannabis have been harvested, but none has been made available to the 800-plus people who have obtained the necessary medical certificates. The government has not clearly explained why.
Now it emerges -- thanks to a doctor who questioned Ms. McLellan at a public meeting of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) in Saint John -- that Ottawa has cold feet. It will not, said the minister, distribute marijuana until clinical trials have been completed. After all this time, those trials have not even begun.
Ms. McLellan says she fears the government will undermine its antismoking campaign by supplying marijuana. This seems improbable. It is a drug strictly limited under controlled conditions to very ill people.
For its part, the CMA says the benefits of using marijuana have not clearly been shown to outweigh the risks. For instance, the smoke weakens the immune system, making it more difficult to fight off disease and infections. The CMA and its insurer say that because the drug has not been tested, doctors could be open to lawsuits if they prescribed marijuana.
The federal government should recall that the main reason to supply marijuana is compassion for the sick. This can be achieved without bringing lawsuits down on doctors' heads. Regulations could be rewritten to ensure that only those with the most severe illnesses qualify, removing the fuzzy area that now includes those with, say, chronic back pain. Doctors who give an honest assessment to their patients of the known risks and benefits, and who fill out forms describing a patient's illness and medication use, should be able to help patients qualify without fear of a lawsuit.
Ms. McLellan prefers to throw up her hands and turn to the judges. Yet the only case before the Supreme Court turns on whether recreational use of the drug can legally be banned. There is a medicinal-marijuana case in the lower courts, but it is a long way from being heard by the country's senior judges.
The Ontario Court of Appeal has already decided the matter. Ms. McLellan accepted that decision. She should move forward quickly, even while the clinical trials are proceeding, to ensure that those in desperate need of this form of pain relief are able to receive it.
Please give me the link to that information right away!
As a matter of fact, they do.
The most abundant evidence are the marijuana advocacy theories that get posted to this forum.
They're usually brain-damaged and nutty as he!!
Stop teasing! It's very important!
There's gonna be a big pot party down at the old mill in a couple of hours -- why, don't you see, the captain of the chess club, the valedictorian, the captain of the debating team -- they're all going to be there! Why, half of River City might just show up!
We HAVE to stop this! But they're so confused by the mixed messages the authorities are sending up here, that they'll only consider "scientific evidence" about marihuana drugs causing brain damage!
There may still be time for us to save some of them! Please post that link!
And makes white women want to have sex with black men and entertainers.
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