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.
After 20 years of taking toxic pharmaceuticals that were less and less effective at controlling his spasms and nausea, he was desperate for relief.
"I was in so much pain I had to try something else," he recalls.
He had never tried pot, even in high school or university in the 1960s, and didn't want to start by smoking. Adam sautéed some cannabis in butter for him and smeared it on a sandwich.
Later that day, Adam's mom called him on his cellphone and told him to come home. "Your father wants the joint," she told him.
Sitting around the kitchen table, Adam showed his father how to smoke and inhale marijuana.
"It was remarkable," Adam says. "It was probably the first time ever I'd seen my dad smile and be painfree."
Today, Michael Greenblatt is one of more than 5,000 authorized marijuana users in Canada. His son is his designated grower, providing him with about 10 grams a day in edible form.
For Adam, the profound effect the cannabis had on his father's symptoms was eye-opening. He went on to run as a candidate for the Marijuana Party and work in a Montreal "compassion club," clinics that operate in a legal grey zone by providing marijuana to sick people outside the Health Canada program.
Greenblatt left the clinic shortly before it was raided by police.
He now runs his own medical marijuana dispensary in Montreal to help other patients and advocates through the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispenseries.
Greenblatt sells medical cannabis products to about 65 customers, both drop-in and mail order.
Today, with the Conservative government bringing in new regulations governing the use of medical marijuana, the future of operations like Greenblatt's is uncertain.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says the changes to the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) are intended to weigh the needs of patients with concerns that home-grow operations are dangerous to health and safety.
"We have heard complaints and concerns from many fire departments and many mayors," she told the Citizen.
Aglukkaq says she is also concerned about reports of criminal activity within the medical marijuana program.
"There are people out there who are abusing this program, unfortunately, for illegal activities," she said. "You see that on the news on a regular basis - houses in a very nice neighbourhood being used to grow marijuana."
But Aglukkaq insists there is no link between changes to the medical marijuana program and the Tories omnibus crime legislation, which was passed this week in the Commons and also casts a shadow on the program's future.
The toughening of drug trafficking laws means that anyone caught sharing or selling marijuana will face mandatory jail sentences. No longer will judges have the discretion to waive a sentence for pot providers who, like Greenblatt and his growers, offer the product to help the sick. If charged and convicted of trafficking, they will do jail time - at least six months.
Libby Davies, the NDP health critic, wonders if the government's proposed changes to the regulations aren't rooted in a deeper suspicion about marijuana. She notes that the previous Liberal government only began authorizing medical marijuana use under the force of a court decision.
"One has to be skeptical about their reasons," she said. "I know they don't like this program. My fear is they will unload it because they don't want to deal with it politically."
Health Canada is currently conducting consultations with stakeholders on the proposed changes to the regulations.
If the new rules are adopted, no longer will patients be able to legally grow pot at home or have someone grow it for them.
Under the current system, approved patients can produce their own marijuana plants or designate a person they know to grow it for them.
Data obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information Act shows that, between 2001 and 2007, about 55 per cent of approved MMAR patients were licensed to grow and another nine per cent could use designated growers.
For these patients, the incentive to grow is both one of cost - done properly it can be cheaper than the $5 plus taxes per gram for Health Canada's pot - and of quality. Many complain that Health Canada's contracted producer, Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba, produces only one strain of cannabis and it has a lower content of active ingredients. Different strains of cannabis are better for treating different diseases, activists contend.
Under the proposed regulations, Health Canada would license private growers to provide marijuana products by mail-order to approved patients.
"We want to look at ways to see how do we treat this like any other prescription drug where a doctor prescribes a prescription and you go to a known agency to access this program," Aglukkaq says. "There is a reliable source and, at the same time, the product is safe."
But still unclear is who would qualify for growing licences, or whether there would be a variety of products available to patients. Many of the socalled compassion clubs that provide marijuana to sick people outside the Health Canada program would like to be approved. They are encouraged they were included in consultations on the new rules, but worry that the government will create regulatory blocks on security grounds, or make the cost of getting a licence unviable. That would allow only a small number of big companies the right to grow and sell legally.
Libby Davies, the NDP health critic, wonders if the government's proposed changes to the regulations aren't rooted in a deeper suspicion about marijuana. She notes that the previous Liberal government only began authorizing medical marijuana use under the force of a court decision.
"One has to be skeptical about their reasons," she said. "I know they don't like this program. My fear is they will unload it because they don't want to deal with it politically."
Health Canada is currently conducting consultations with stakeholders on the proposed changes to the regulations.
If the new rules are adopted, no longer will patients be able to legally grow pot at home or have someone grow it for them.
Under the current system, approved patients can produce their own marijuana plants or designate a person they know to grow it for them.
Data obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information Act shows that, between 2001 and 2007, about 55 per cent of approved MMAR patients were licensed to grow and another nine per cent could use designated growers.
For these patients, the incentive to grow is both one of cost - done properly it can be cheaper than the $5 plus taxes per gram for Health Canada's pot - and of quality. Many complain that Health Canada's contracted producer, Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba, produces only one strain of cannabis and it has a lower content of active ingredients. Different strains of cannabis are better for treating different diseases, activists contend.
Under the proposed regulations, Health Canada would license private growers to provide marijuana products by mail-order to approved patients.
"We want to look at ways to see how do we treat this like any other prescription drug where a doctor prescribes a prescription and you go to a known agency to access this program," Aglukkaq says. "There is a reliable source and, at the same time, the product is safe."
But still unclear is who would qualify for growing licences, or whether there would be a variety of products available to patients. Many of the socalled compassion clubs that provide marijuana to sick people outside the Health Canada program would like to be approved. They are encouraged they were included in consultations on the new rules, but worry that the government will create regulatory blocks on security grounds, or make the cost of getting a licence unviable. That would allow only a small number of big companies the right to grow and sell legally.
The prohibition on growing is just one in a basket of changes that Health Canada has suggested making to the medical marijuana program as it moves into its second decade.
The regulations would also relieve Health Canada bureaucrats of the responsibility for approving applications that have already been signed off by doctors. The two-step process of asking a doctor before applying to the MMAR program would end and doctors alone would decide whether to issue the licence.
Marijuana advocates are generally supportive of this change but warn it will do nothing to overcome the major obstacle for patients: few doctors are agreeing to sign the papers as the Canadian Medical Association does not support the program. Patients still must doctor-shop to find a marijuana-friendly physician, with some even paying $400 or more to visit clinics specializing in medical marijuana referrals. Others go to compassion clubs if there are any nearby, or instead buy marijuana illegally "on the street."
Aglukkaq says solving this problem will require better research and more consultations with the CMA and provincial health ministries.
That's not good enough for François Arcand, an Ottawa medicinal marijuana patient who is frustrated by the CMA's reticence to let doctors prescribe the drug.
"It's a medication that has so much potential, but it's marijuana, so it's 'shhhhh'," he says.
Arcand was studying civil law at the University of Ottawa in 1989 when he was struck by a brain hemorrhage. Doctors told him he had a pear-sized arterial venous malformation in his head.
After surgery, he was left with little feeling on one side of his body and suffered from near-constant seizures. Pharmaceutical drugs reduced the number of seizures, but sapped his appetite and left him in a mental fog. His weight loss and physical decline was so obvious that some people asked him if he had HIV or AIDS.
Sick of watching him waste away, Arcand's brother bought some marijuana for him. The drug was transformative. It dramatically cut down on his seizures, restored his appetite, let him sleep at night and helped him regain some movement in his right arm.
But Arcand couldn't get his doctor to agree to enrol him in the Health Canada program.
"I was told, 'Nope, the CMA does not allow us to give it.' "
Instead, he began buying it illegally. "I knew a guy who knew a guy," he says.
Having to resort to a criminal activity did not sit well with someone who had once planned on becoming a Crown prosecutor.
It took him seven years to find a vascular neurologist who would agree to sign the Health Canada forms. Now he consumes his cannabis in the form of a tincture, with the pot supplied by Greenblatt's girlfriend, his designated grower.
"I blame the CMA. They're the ones who tell their doctors you don't have a right to give a prescription," Arcand says.
"There's so many people this could help without the stigma of getting high all the time."
Origin The regulations would also relieve Health Canada bureaucrats of the responsibility for approving applications that have already been signed off by doctors. The two-step process of asking a doctor before applying to the MMAR program would end and doctors alone would decide whether to issue the licence.
Marijuana advocates are generally supportive of this change but warn it will do nothing to overcome the major obstacle for patients: few doctors are agreeing to sign the papers as the Canadian Medical Association does not support the program. Patients still must doctor-shop to find a marijuana-friendly physician, with some even paying $400 or more to visit clinics specializing in medical marijuana referrals. Others go to compassion clubs if there are any nearby, or instead buy marijuana illegally "on the street."
Aglukkaq says solving this problem will require better research and more consultations with the CMA and provincial health ministries.
That's not good enough for François Arcand, an Ottawa medicinal marijuana patient who is frustrated by the CMA's reticence to let doctors prescribe the drug.
"It's a medication that has so much potential, but it's marijuana, so it's 'shhhhh'," he says.
Arcand was studying civil law at the University of Ottawa in 1989 when he was struck by a brain hemorrhage. Doctors told him he had a pear-sized arterial venous malformation in his head.
After surgery, he was left with little feeling on one side of his body and suffered from near-constant seizures. Pharmaceutical drugs reduced the number of seizures, but sapped his appetite and left him in a mental fog. His weight loss and physical decline was so obvious that some people asked him if he had HIV or AIDS.
Sick of watching him waste away, Arcand's brother bought some marijuana for him. The drug was transformative. It dramatically cut down on his seizures, restored his appetite, let him sleep at night and helped him regain some movement in his right arm.
But Arcand couldn't get his doctor to agree to enrol him in the Health Canada program.
"I was told, 'Nope, the CMA does not allow us to give it.' "
Instead, he began buying it illegally. "I knew a guy who knew a guy," he says.
Having to resort to a criminal activity did not sit well with someone who had once planned on becoming a Crown prosecutor.
It took him seven years to find a vascular neurologist who would agree to sign the Health Canada forms. Now he consumes his cannabis in the form of a tincture, with the pot supplied by Greenblatt's girlfriend, his designated grower.
"I blame the CMA. They're the ones who tell their doctors you don't have a right to give a prescription," Arcand says.
"There's so many people this could help without the stigma of getting high all the time."
Source: Citizen
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