POT CRUSADER URGED TO EDUCATE PHYSICIANS

A Calgary man who is organizing a non-profit club to help seriously ill people obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes should work at educating physicians about the drug’s benefits, advises a Vancouver activist.

‘Communications with local police would be the best bet,’ Brown said, explaining that unofficial contact fosters mutual understanding and may be why police in Vancouver have tolerated her operation.

Whatever Krieger does, he should do it in a way that is not seen to be sneaky, said Brown, who opened her 800-member club in May 1997 and supplies her members the dope by mail.

‘Everything needs to be above board.’

Krieger, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 20 years ago, said he began using marijuana to alleviate muscle spasms four years ago and is able to lead a near-normal existence, although he remains disabled and dependent on Canada Pension Plan income.

He plans to provide members of his club with locally grown dope.

Krieger is promoting the drug despite two trafficking convictions this year - one in Calgary and the other in Regina, where he is to be sentenced in January.

Not everyone shares Krieger’s enthusiasm over the medicinal value of cannabis.

Dr. Ted Braun, a palliative care physician at Rockyview Hospital, said little or no credible research has been done and he has never encountered a patient who told him cannabis has a therapeutic effect where other drugs failed.
See
Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee
Criticizes UK Government’s Rejection Of Report On Medical Marijuana
– 2 Articles With 2 of the Worst Prohibitionist Arguments

Dr. Bill Grisdale, medical director of Hospice Calgary and a pain expert, said his pot-smoking patients had an addiction history before contracting their disease.
(Marijuananews note: Therefore, anyone with a history of addiction should be denied pain-relief?)

See
"50 percent of patients who died in hospitals suffered moderate to severe pain."
But We Are Told That There Is No Need For Medical Marijuana -- 2 Articles
and links
Grisdale said he has tried helping cancer patients afflicted with nausea by prescribing a tablet that consists partly of cannabis, but ‘I’m not impressed that is’s good.

‘I can’t recall anybody saying that it (marijuana) has specifically helped their pain,’ he said.

But Boston psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon, a professor at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the 1993 book Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine, predicted the drug eventually will be seen ‘as an extraordinary medicine.’
See Dr. Grinspoon's site www.rxmarihuana.com

Grinspoon said the book is based on research in scientific journals and volumes of anecdotal material. ‘It is remarkably non-toxic,’ he said. ‘It is useful in the treatment of a very diverse array of symptoms and syndromes.

‘The drug companies are not the least bit interested in cannabis.  They can’t patent it.’

Compassion Clubs have sprouted up in the past two years across Canada and the United States as a way for activists to pressure legislators to legalize marijuana.
(A realvideo of Dr. David Suzuki interviewing Compassion Club members for his documentary Canadian TV series "The Nature of Things" is at: http://www.legalize-usa.org/_private/reefer2.ram)

Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington approved marijuana for medicinal purposes Nov. 3 despite a U.S. federal ban on the drug. Federal authorities have threatened to strip physicians of their prescription authority if they are caught prescribing dope.

But proponents say doctors will not be prosecuted in states with the new laws as long as the simply recommend pot and don’t prescribe or procure it.

From the Vancouver Province
December 31, 1998
Front Page
provletters@pacpress.southam.ca
http://www.vancouverprovince.com/
By John Colebourn, Staff Reporter

MARIJUANA ‘MEDICINE’

With five grams of "B.C. Beautiful" in her hand, housewife Cheryl Eburne heads into the Compassion Club’s smoking room to forget for an afternoon the pain she feels when the cold and rain seep into her arthritic bones.

Elegantly dressed, the mother of two teenage boys quickly rolls up and lights a huge marijuana cigarette, smokes the whole thing and for the first time in a day feels up to visiting friends near her Vancouver home and doing some holiday shopping.

A far cry from the Cheech and Chong-type stoner, Eburne, 50, has dropped into the Commercial Drive pot club to pick up the outdoor organic indica she says helps her cope with severe arthritis and fibromyalgia.

Since joining the club, Eburne has been a vocal critic of what she says are antiquated federal laws. She thinks the time has come to legally allow those who are sick to smoke pot if it helps their health.

Six years ago, the pain began to take a heavy toll and Eburne was put on medication. But "my doctor was as frustrated as I was because the drugs were making me sicker."

All that changed last summer, she says, when her doctor decided to allow marijuana to be her medicine of choice.

"Before, I was up for days. I’m sleeping now.

"Emotionally I’m a different person. I’m upbeat now, not depressed. When you’re in chronic pain and don’t sleep, it affects everything in your life."

The club is offering a feel-good service to about 700 people suffering from cancer, AIDS, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, migraines, nausea and other serious health problems by selling them high-grade marijuana at about $5 to $10 a gram.

But it is giving the folks at city hall a big headache.

Club founder Hilary Black, 22, says the club doesn’t yet have a city hall occupancy permit to stay at its location, where it has been for seven months. The club has a lawyer handling the negotiations.

City hall is also perplexed by the fact that the club has been given society status by the provincial government. With that registered-charity status, the club can solicit donations legitimately. It pays income tax for the 10 people on staff, who work for minimum wage.

All the "clean" and organic pot distributed by the club is supplied by growers who sell it at discount prices or donate it.

People can join the club by supplying a doctor’s note saying why they need medical marijuana.

Black insists that the club is just trying to cover expenses. Besides supplying the pot, it has a masseuse available and operates a holistic wellness centre.

"Nobody is making any money here, and we can prove it," says Black. "It is important city hall knows we have a lot of supporters."

Black says the police have not yet bothered the club: "Obviously the police know who we are, but they have never raided us yet."

"It is a peculiar situation," admits Michael Twynstra, manager of the city’s properties inspection branch of permits and licensing.

"There seems to be some greyness there as to where this operation falls into.

"It’s something that is not normally done in the city . . . So at this point we don’t know where we are going with it."

"There’s no official policy with respect to the Compassion Club," she says.

"That [operation] is not the focus of our investigations with respect to marijuana.

"We’re interested in the grow-ops and the trafficking."

For staff worker Ere’n Coyle, having members in the club visit on a regular basis "makes it feel like there’s a sense of community here."

Some U.S. cities have similar clubs, and smaller operations exist in Toronto, Kitchener and London, Ont.

"I’d love to see an operation like this in every city," says Coyle. "It’s so nice to have a member say: ‘I’ve been feeling better today.""

~~~~~(sidebar)~~~~~

WHAT THE COURTS SAY

Ottawa insists that marijuana is illegal regardless of any medical benefits.

But Canadian courts have done much to support an emerging medical and scientific consensus that pot is relatively benign.

Among recent decisions:

In December last year, an Ontario judge ruled that some sections of Canada’s Controlled Drug and Substance Act are unconstitutional when applied to cases where marijuana is used for medicinal purposes. The judge stayed charges of cultivation and possession of marijuana against 42-year-old Terry Parker, an epileptic.
See
The Lancet reports on the Terry Parker case."Canadian Judge Allows Marijuana as Therapy"