Health Minister Rona Ambrose was “outraged.” Outraged, no less.
The Supreme Court of Canada, a panel of nine of the country’s most respected jurists--seven of whom were appointed by Stephen Harper, leader of Ambrose’s own party--unanimously decided that users of medical marijuana did not have to smoke it, they could use it in other preparations such as brownies and teas.
A group of nine seventh-graders could just as easily have concluded that it makes absolutely no sense the only way to consume medical pot under current regulations is in the most unhealthy way imaginable. Even a health minister who is ideologically opposed to marijuana being used for medicinal purposes should be applauding a Supreme Court decision that gives authorized users a more healthful way of consuming it.
It is truly unfortunate that Ambrose’s reaction was so completely out of proportion with the actual issue that it totally overshadowed what is, in fact, a very good point even if her explanation of it was woefully inadequate.
Medical marijuana is not a legal drug or medicine in Canada. Its use became acceptable due to a court order that Canadians must have reasonable access to a legal source of cannabis if it is prescribed by a licenced healthcare practitioner. There are, of course, activist healthcare practitioners in this country, including physicians, who believe in the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and are willing to prescribe it.
There are also less scrupulous individuals who see a lucrative business and are willing to exploit the odd status of marijuana for profit.
The Canadian Medical Association has serious reservations about cannabis, partly because it puts unconvinced physicians in an awkward position of dealing with pot-seeking patients, but mostly because of the lack of evidence that marijuana is therapeutically useful and, if so, what it is useful for.
And that is why it is not approved by Health Canada. Manufacturers of drugs have to go through rigourous processes to have drugs approved. Then again, manufacturers of myriad types of so-called “natural health products” don’t have to prove anything except that their snake oil won’t kill humans. Regular readers of this column know how I feel about the woeful inadequacy of legislation in this country to protect people from charlatans.
Cannabis, though, has a lot of unproven potential. In fact, there may well be all kinds of legitimate uses for ingredients in marijuana, but that needs to be proven by properly studying and isolating those substances and clinically proving their efficacy. That way, new drugs derived from the plant can be developed in a pure form and prescribed in an accurate dose. In any event, taking something “natural” is a poor excuse for proper medicine particularly if you are smoking it.
Medical marijuana is a really weird grey area of Canadian law. It is not legal, but legal access to it is sometimes authorized under a regulatory framework that is contrary to both the health regime and the justice system.
This is something that must change. If cannabis is a legitimate drug, or rather, has potential therapeutic derivatives, let’s treat it as such and make it go through the proper process. I am not uncompassionate, however. You can’t just all of a sudden take away something people have grown to rely on for legitimate medical conditions. I know people who swear by pot for diabetic conditions or pain relief. Then again, I know people who swear by astrology, homeopathy, chiropractic and all kinds of other pseudoscientific nonsense. There is no limit, it seems, to the efficacy of the placebo effect.
Right now, however, marijuana for medicinal use should be illegal because it does not stand up to the test of science.
This opinion should not be construed as a shift in my position about recreational marijuana. I continue to be a staunch advocate of ending prohibition.
Those last two statements may seem incongruent, but I assure you they are not. If it’s medicine it needs to be regulated like medicine. If it’s just for fun and socializing, like alcohol, it needs to be regulated like alcohol.
That brings me to the other really aggravating aspect of the Ambrose and Conservative position that proposes the recent Supreme Court decision has the effect of normalizing marijuana.
Listen up, people. marijuana has been normalized in Canada for decades. We use more of it per capita than any other country in the world. Almost half the population has at least tried it. More than two million people are current users. More than 200,000 use it daily. Even those of us who don’t use it overwhelmingly favour legalization.
Every single one of us knows people who smoke pot and are perfectly law-abiding, moral people. If you don’t think you do, well, think again.
Prohibition of an already normalized substance simply does not work. It makes millionaires out of criminals and criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens. It makes it virtually impossible to provide the social and health services required to combat abuse and it drains the public purse with policing and health costs rather than contributing to it through taxes.
