BPF Submission to Heath Canada on MMAR Changes

Submitted by Kirk Tousaw on Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:36am
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SUBMISSION OF THE BEYOND PROHIBITION FOUNDATION IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO HEALTH CANADA’S MARIHUANA MEDICAL ACCESS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

The Beyond Prohibition Foundation was established in 2010 to advocate for the repeal of cannabis prohibition and its replacement with a system of regulated production and distribution.  It operates the website www.whyprohibition.ca, Canada's largest dedicated drug policy reform website and host to more than 30,000 members.  The Foundation's mission includes advocacy on behalf of safe access to medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts for those obtaining therapeutic and medicinal benefit.

This submission responds to Health Canada's consultation document titled "Proposed Improvements to Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Program" (the "Consultation Document").  In the Consultation Document, Health Canada foreshadows significant changes to Canada's medical cannabis policies.  The Foundation welcomes Health Canada's tacit acknowledgement that the current Marihuana Medical Access Regulation (MMAR) system is deeply flawed and in need of significant reform.  That reform is necessary in two primary areas:  (1) the need to improve access to the legal protections afforded by the legislative and regulatory scheme; and (2) the need to provide consumers with safe access to an effective supply of medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts.  This submission lays out the Foundation's view of the proposed changes and offers suggestions for making necessary improvements to the federal program.
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Form letter: Regarding Proposed Restrictions to Health Canada's Medical Marijuana Program

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/07/2011 - 7:31pm
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Sign the petition and make your voice heard at Health Canada!

I am deeply concerned about the response by Health Canada to the various court decisions declaring its existing medical marijuana program unconstitutional. The proposals that have been brought forward fail to deal with the myriad of problems in the program. Specifically, I take issue with the following proposals:

Physician as “Gatekeeper”:
R v Mernagh found that physicians in Canada have effectively boycotted the existing medical marijuana program, and therefore the program itself was unconstitutional. Health Canada's response does nothing to address this boycott beyond the promise of making information accessible to physicians. Any changes to the Health Canada medical marijuana program must abide by the findings in R v Mernagh and meaningfully expand the “Gatekeeper” role beyond physicians, preferably to include Naturopaths, Nurse Practitioners, Doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacists.

Personal and Designated Production:
Individuals have spent thousands of dollars and often years of time setting up production facilities and finding appropriate marijuana cultivars (strains) for their condition. Court cases including Sfetkopolous, Beren and Hitzig have found that denying production licenses on arbitrary grounds violates a patient's constitutional rights to access medical marijuana. Read more »

Download over 725 Peer Reviewed Research Articles and Reports on Drug Policy Reform and More!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 2:20pm
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This comprehensive (and amazing) collection of references includes the following categories of papers:
 
Alcohol harm reduction
Cannabis
Drug Education / prevention
Drug policy documents - the need for change
Drug policy history
Economic issues
Entheogens and psychedelics
Health and social consequences of drug prohibition
Incarceration
Needle Exchange
Policing and drug law enforcement
Positive or non problematic relationships with drugs
Post prohibition options
PowerPoint presentations
Ranking of drug harms
Science is trumped by ideology
Sex trade work
Supervised injection facilities
United Nations and human rights
Violence and drugs
 
The download time is approx 10 minutes and the file you receive will need to be unzipped. Read more »

Get Involved! Help Defeat Prohibition

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 12:00am
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We need to get a lot of work done to legalize marijuana, here's some ways to help!
 
Get active helping build activism in Canada!
 
May 5, 2012 is the Global Marijuana March, and of course there is always 4/20 (April 20) and Cannabis Day, July 1. We need organizers working across Canada on these and other events.
 
Send that link out over Facebook and Twitter, encourage your friends to sign up! WhyProhibition.ca will is the basis for a number of important campaigns, including a new BC referendum to legalize Marijuana. We need people to register so they can find out about upcoming protests, rallies, and laws.
 
We need bloggers, researchers, newshawks, and activists to get posting! You can use the userblogs section to post blogs, news, upload files (especially pamphlets, we're looking to host as many drug policy pamphlets as we can find!)
 
One of the most important things you can do is get involved in your local community. Join other activist groups, volunteer at soup kitchens, march in local parades. When we get involved, not only do we reach out to potential allies, but we also represent the best of our community to people who may be unfamiliar with it. If you're unsure about a group, attend some meetings and see if they're amenable to drug policy reform.
 

Sex workers want an end to street sweeps by police

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 9:00pm

By Candice So, Ottawa Citizen With Files From Zev Singer

A coalition representing local sex trade workers is urging Ottawa police to stop cracking down on prostitutes in monthly sting operations.

The group's open letter to police was sent in response to the warning Chief Vern White issued in December, saying investigators had detected a pattern in the deaths of a number of sex trade workers. The police also issued a safety advisory, advising sex workers to work in teams and to avoid isolated areas. Read more »

Beyond Prohibition Foundation applauds Liberal policy to legalize marijuana

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:14pm
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By. The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Don't fear the reefer. That's the message to the Conservative government from a group that fights to legalize pot.

The Beyond Prohibition Foundation says weed could be a real cash crop for Canada.

"We're talking about $400 million (that) is spent every year arresting just about 50,000 (people) -- plus or minus a few thousand people, depending on the year -- and that's just for possession," said Jacob Hunter, the Vancouver-based group's policy director.

"It goes up to 80,000 when you factor in trafficking and production. So we're talking about $400 million in savings on the possession side and then about $2 billion in revenue, assuming a whole number of variables.

"It gets a little complicated on the revenue side, because you have to figure out what the usage rate is, what the tax rate is, etc., etc. But it's a net gain for the government of about $2.4 billion." Read more »

Hidden dispensary helping to fill need

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 11:10pm

BY CHARLIE FIDELMAN, THE GAZETTE

The first thing patients get in the vestibule of a hidden Montreal medical marijuana centre is a wail-tagging welcome from a rescue border collie called Maybe.

The inner sanctum - kitchen with stainless steel appliances and banner featuring a dove carrying a marijuana leaf - has a faint odour of pot.

The baking menu on this day includes pumpkin honey cannabis cake using marijuana-infused olive oil.

Welcome to a reincarnation of the Montreal compassion club, which has rejected "compassion" in favour of "dispensary" because patients have a right to medication, says Adam Greenblatt, head of the Montreal Medical Cannabis Access Society. Read more »

Medical marijuana elevates former soldier from rock bottom

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 11:06pm

BY GLEN MCGREGOR, POSTMEDIA NEWS

Chris Hillier’s life arc bottomed out in a Vancouver back alley, across the country from his Newfoundland home and a world away from the war zone that broke him.

Homeless, penniless, and addicted to crack cocaine, Hillier slept behind a community centre, at the intersection of Hastings and Main, the notorious epicentre of the city’s drug trade.

Three years earlier, Hillier was in the midst of a successful military career, serving his country as an air force firefighter aboard HMCS Preserver in the Middle East in the months after the 9/11 strikes on the U.S. Read more »

Alberta nurse: 'We're not dial-a-dope'

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:59pm

BY JODIE SINNEMA, POSTMEDIA NEWS

EDMONTON — Janice Cyre is married to “an old hippie.”

But it wasn’t until six years ago, when she was in her mid-50s and had a fibromyalgia attack so severe no conventional medications could touch it, that she finally felt comfortable smoking a joint herself.

She almost coughed her lungs out.

But her husband wasn’t about to give up, convinced the anti-inflammatory compounds in marijuana could help Cyre with the constant aches and the sharp pains. Pharmaceutical anti-inflammatories pushed Cyre’s blood pressure to levels so high her doctor wondered why she didn’t have a stroke.

After some experimentation with vaporizing the marijuana, Cyre and her husband, Bob, who can also legally use marijuana for severe arthritis, settled on tea. Read more »

Nova Scotia man fighting to shake stigma of medical marijuana use

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:56pm

BY JODIE SINNEMA, POSTMEDIA NEWS Published in Vancouver Sun

Terry Bremner smokes his marijuana pipe in Halifax parking lots and quiet woods, even though he is legally allowed cannabis to dull the pain associated with fibromyalgia.

Until now, his two adult sons didn’t know. His neighbours didn’t know. The parents of the seven- and eight-year-old football players he coaches didn’t know. He masks the pungent smell of pot with gum, cigars and cologne.

But he thinks it’s time to speak up against the stigma so prevalent on the East Coast and in Canada against marijuana that lumps medical patients with recreational users. Read more »

Legal changes cause questions for medical marijuana users

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:51pm

BY GLEN MCGREGOR, POSTMEDIA NEWS

OTTAWA - Eighteen-year-old Adam Greenblatt was lying in bed one morning when his mother burst into his room and demanded to know if he had any drugs.

Greenblatt, who had been busted for possession while smoking up with some friends outside his high school in suburban Toronto, thought his mom was hassling him about pot again.

But this time was different.

Adam's father wanted to give marijuana a try, his mother said. Get out your dope, she told him.

Michael Greenblatt, a dentist, had suffered from multiple sclerosis since his late 30s. The neurological condition left him with a twisted arm and unable to practise dentistry. Read more »

Most medical marijuana users middle-aged men

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:46pm

BY GLEN MCGREGOR, OTTAWA CITIZEN

He is 47 years old and, chances are, he lives somewhere on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast.

Under Health Canada’s medical marijuana program, he is approved to legally consume up to five grams a day of the pot he grows himself at home. Most likely, his general practitioner signed the forms he needed to get the drug.

And on average, he is a “he” — men in the program outnumber women by a ratio of about three to one.

As with a great number of medical marijuana patients, he uses the drug to treat severe arthritis, although he may suffer from other conditions. Read more »

Poor quality legal pot drives sufferers to the streets

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:36pm

BY JODIE SINNEMA, POSTMEDIA NEWS Published in Montreal Gazette

Margaret Marceniuk inhales her medical marijuana through a pharmaceutical puffer and a headshop pipe.

Tamara Cartwright vaporizes her pot with a machine called a Volcano, then inhales three to four bags of the vapour while locked away in her bedroom, away from her toddler.

Ian Layfield in Victoria swallows cannabis-infused oil capsules he makes himself, frying olive oil with pot leaves, then straining it with cheese cloth and pouring it into gel caps. He also mixes cannabis into a topical cream he rubs into his left foot and ankle, which was crushed in October 2006 after being rolled over by a grader. Read more »

Canada needs a medical-marijuana policy that puts patients first

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:23pm

BY ADAM GREENBLATT, FREELANCE Montreal Gazette

In 2003, I started bringing pot home from school for my dad.

He had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1985. My family struggled alongside him as MS took its painful toll. His galaxy of pills did little but turn him into a zombie.

Eighteen years later, he discovered cannabis. I procured it for him from my high school, where it was - and remains - ubiquitous. What began as a clandestine therapy of last resort soon became his front-line treatment.

Today, a regimen of cannabis-infused foods helps him control pain, spasms and nausea. It lifts his spirits, perks up his appetite and helps him sleep. The side effects are negligible, especially compared to those of some of his legal medications, which twice nearly killed him. Read more »