High time for compassionate approval of pot: expert

Barbara Sibbald

The federal government's new guidelines for using marijuana for medical purposes are a “very humane” initiative, says a leading pain expert.

“I have patients who say it works better than anything they have tried, and these are patients who have tried everything for chronic neuropathic pain,” says Dr. Mary Lynch, who heads the 26-member Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids in Human Therapeutics (www.ccicht.ca).

She says the new Health Canada program to fund research on cannabis while allowing its use under defined circumstances is a “reasonable and compassionate approach.” The alternative, for many patients, would be to wait 5 or so years until there is sufficient scientific evidence of smoked marijuana's efficacy, says Lynch, director of research at the pain management unit of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax. The government will spend $7.5 million over 5 years on marijuana research.

But CMA past president Hugh Scully said that even though the association understands why Health Canada prepared the regulations, it cannot support them. “We believe that it is premature for Health Canada to expand broadly the medicinal use of marijuana before there is adequate scientific support,” said Scully.

Lynch counters that Health Canada is in effect saying that there is “enough evidence” to use marijuana.

Beginning July 30, patients suffering from terminal illnesses and serious medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis can apply for special permission to grow and possess marijuana for personal use. A physician must sign their application form.

In announcing the program, Dr. Jody Gomber, head of Health Canada's Office of Controlled Substances, says the government is not advocating the use of marijuana, but is allowing compassionate use for certain patients.

A recent overview of studies of cannabinoids (cannabis in pill or injectable form) found they are no more effective than traditional painkillers (British Medical Journal 2001;323:2-3). But there is little published research on the efficacy of smoked cannabis, something the Canadian consortium hopes to rectify by 2002.