From Reuters
June 3, 1999

By Luke McCann

TORONTO June 3, (Reuters) - Canada is quietly investigating the possibility of testing a marijuana inhaler being developed by a British company that would help ease the pain of suffering patients but stop short of making them high.

Britain’s GW Pharmaceuticals has been testing vaporized marijuana, heated and inhaled through a nebulizer—similar to the inhalers used by asthma sufferers—to relieve pain in chronically ill patients.

(Marijuananews note: This technology was completely ignored by the IOM report. However, while it will be very useful for some patients, for most it is much ado about nothing. Taking a few puffs will be the preferred means of administration, simply because it is so fast and easy, important advantages when a person is nauseous or in pain. Oh, well, it makes the doctors happy, which is really the purpose of establishment medicine.)

See
Column By Authors of the IOM Report On Medical Marijuana
Shows Why The Public Does Not Trust The Medical Establishment –
And Why They Should Not! With Analysis by Richard Cowan

"Certainly we are looking at what is going on in the international community," Bonnie Fox-McCintyre, spokeswoman for Canada’s health minister, told Reuters. "But I think it would be too fine a point to say we’re already negotiating."

Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Thursday that the government has begun talks with the company to test the product in its own clinical trials.

In March, Health Minister Allan Rock ordered clinical trials for the medical use of marijuana and to determine how to grant safe access to the drug. Last week, Rock expressed a preference for growing a supply of the drug in Canada.

If the trials prove marijuana helps relieve pain, the government is expected to allow its use.

"It’s not that there’s some strange marijuana somewhere that doesn’t have a psychoactive effect," Mark Rogerson, spokesman for GW Pharmaceuticals, told Reuters from London on Thursday. "It’s just that the dosage required to relieve the pain would be much less than what is required to make you high,."
See
UK Guidelines For Tests On Medical Marijuana To Be Set Today;
Muddled Reporting On Muddled "Experts" -- 2 Articles
and
UK Moves Toward Medical Marijuana Trials; The Prince Seems To Approve,
But Not the BMA -- 2 Articles
and
It Is Almost Harvest Time In UK For First Medical Marijuana Crop; But It Can Only Be Used For "Research"

"I’ve seen reports that (the Canadian government) has invited us to negotiations, but I can’t comment on that," Rogerson said.

The drug’s painkilling capabilities are believed to prevent epileptic seizures, and relieve pain for multiple sclerosis and cancer patients.

The company is trying to deliver the drug through an inhaler to avoid the harmful action of smoking and hopes to have a product on the market within five years.

(Marijuananews note: Although this is better than the stalling in DEAland, there is something astonishing about a system that will take five years to approve the use of a plant that has been used for thousands of years and has no lethal dose. How time flies when you are not in pain and not in prison!)

Tests have already been conducted on healthy volunteers and, within two weeks, trials in Britain will begin on multiple sclerosis patients.

GW Pharmaceuticals clones marijuana in a greenhouse to ensure a secure a constant supply of the drug, something Canada has considered.

See
In Canada Only the Government Has Difficulty Getting Marijuana.
However, "Canadians who want to take part in a clinical trial
will find application forms on Health Canada’s Web Site"