By Dr. W. Gifford Jones
September 22, 2002
How would you feel if you were suffering the terrible symptoms of cancer, Aids and other serious diseases? If you knew that smoking marijuana provided some relief, but then be told that Anne McLellan, the new Federal Minister of Health, had vetoed the plan to supply pot. I don't believe anyone without such agonizing symptoms knows how disappointed and frustrated these patients must be. What she has done is unbelievable hypocrisy. What's worse the Canadian Medical Association in its infinite wisdom has agreed with her.
Mclellan claims she cannot agree to marijuana when she's also dedicated to fighting tobacco use. What rubbish! It's a ridiculous argument. These patients need pot for medicinal purposes which has nothing to do with cigarette use.
Then the Minister argues she's not comfortable providing marijuana until clinical trials prove it's safe. Come on! Let's be sensible. Have you considered how uncomfortable patients are day after day retching and in pain? And you ask them to wait for years? They will be dead by that time.
The irony continues. The Honourable Minister says that marijuana should be subject to the same standards as other legitimate drugs. I'd suggest that she examine the list of prescription drugs. Most of these legal drugs have a list of adverse reactions as long as your arm, some fatal.
The Minister of Health should know that thousands of patients die every year from the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to treat arthritis. Others from taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. But I've never heard of anyone dying from smoking pot.
One could argue that prescription drugs should be subject to the same safety standard as marijuana!
Part of McLellan's decision to snuff out marijuana was due to a doctor who criticized the medical use of pot at the last meeting of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA). I've listened to this type of self-righteous physician before. They are always prone to foist their moral but undocumented views on others and love to hear themselves talk. Surely Anne McLellan should know there are thousands of other doctors who do not share his view.
What is more appalling is the lack of wisdom of the CMA. They want clinical trials done even though it will take years to conduct them. Even when they are aware that clinical evidence shows that marijuana has helped many patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and epilepsy.
Their excuse? They're concerned that doctors could be open to law suits. That's a lame argument. I can't envision a situation where a patient would sue a physician who has prescribed marijuana for compassionate reasons. This attitude is simply a cop out. It's another example of the conservative medical organizations which have never been in the forefront of social change.
Allan Rock, the former Minister of Health, took a more realistic approach. He approved spending 5.7 million to grow marijuana in a Flin Flon mine shaft in Manitoba. He realized that the potential harm to the lungs from inhaling pot smoke was negligible to the medical benefits from its use. But once again common sense remains such an uncommon commodity.
This whole debate reminds me of another fight years ago. The years I spent trying to legalize heroin to treat terminal cancer pain. The Canadian Cancer Society, cancer specialists, CMA, pharmacists and RCMP all opposed it claiming it wasn't needed. Yet British doctors had used heroin effectively for 80 years. (If interested the details are covered in my book "You're Going To Do What?"
Finally, Anne McLellan wants the Supreme Court to decide this matter. But this requires years of waiting for a verdict. Besides, this should not be a matter for judges in ermine robes. It's another devious cop-out for a politician fearful of controversy when it should be a simple, straight-forward medical decision between physician and patient.
Currently there are about 800 patients who have applied for the use of marijuana on compassionate grounds. The Federal government has approved these cases.
Now, due to Anne McLellan's shilly-shallying they will continue to retch, have needless epileptic attacks and debilitating pain.
Human compassion, and that alone, should make marijuana available to patients who need it. It's too bad that politicians, doctors and moralists along with Anne McLellan can't be made to suffer these symptoms for 24 long hours. How quickly unjust, unreasonable, cruel laws would change!
W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com
My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:
Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1
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