Google - AFP, 17 december 2012
A medical
marijuana plant grows at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center
in Los Angeles on
September 7, 2012 (Getty Images/AFP/File, David Mcnew)
|
OTTAWA —
Canada's Conservative government will soon stop producing and distributing
medical marijuana, leaving it up to the private sector in a policy change that
angered critics on Monday.
Canada's
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq made the announcement on Sunday, claiming
current regulations "have left the system open to abuse."
"We
have heard real concerns from law enforcement, fire officials, and
municipalities about how people are hiding behind these rules to conduct
illegal activity, and putting health and safety of Canadians at risk," the
minister said.
"These
changes will make it far more difficult for people to game the system."
Aglukkaq
said Ottawa would no longer produce and distribute marijuana for medical
purposes. Instead, companies will be licenced to grow and sell the product at
market rates.
Patients
with a prescription from a doctor starting in March 2013 will be allowed to
purchase a variety of strains of marijuana from licensed producers, who will
set prices.
Also
individuals will no longer be permitted to grow marijuana in their homes for
their own personal use, said Aglukkaq.
Police and
fire officials claimed that home grow operations are at "risk of abuse and
exploitation by criminal elements" and one in 22 catch fire, and so they
applauded the move.
Doctors
however complained that they are being asked to write prescriptions for a
substance that has not been clinically tested. Some risks such as lung disease
from smoking it or pyschosis are known, while the benefits are only anecdotal,
including relief from nausea and pain.
And they
said they are now being asked to be the sole gatekeepers of the program,
accusing the government of abdicating its responsibility.
"It's
the equivalent of asking doctors to prescribe while blindfolded," Canadian
Medical Association president Anna Reid told the daily Globe and Mail.
Marijuana
activists and opposition MPs meanwhile stepped up calls for both medical and
recreational use of marijuana to be decriminalized, after two US states last
month voted to legalize pot.
The Medical
Cannabis Access Society, a Montreal-based medical marijuana dispensary,
commented that "creating a commercial marketplace is ostensibly
progressive."
"We
are witnessing the convergence of a flowering social justice movement with an
emergent commercial sector. It's going to be a bumpy ride," it said in a
statement.
However the
group added, "For many patients who grow their own, this is one step
forward and two steps back."
Some 26,000
Canadians are authorized to use marijuana for medical purposes, up from 500 a
decade ago, according to government figures.
As many as
one million Canadians are believed to smoke it regularly for recreation, say
polls.
Canada's
health department currently sells marijuana for Can$5 per gram, which it says
is heavily subsidized by taxpayers. The street value can be as many as three
times more.
Some patients
have said the government stash is weak and so turned to growing it themselves.
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