Hey PKT....I know your quite left of center on the political/social scene...but come on......!!!
Taken from the CTV Newsnet on September 17, 2003:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories
CTV.ca News Staff
Ottawa doesn't know how to grow marijuana. That's the verdict from some of the first patients to smoke Health Canada's government-approved pot.
Three of the 10 people approved to use government marijuana for medical purposes say the drug is no good -- and they want their money back.
Jim Wakeford, 58, is an AIDS patient in Gibsons, B.C. He says the pot he got from Ottawa was well below grade.
"It's not marijuana, it's ground-up stems, twigs and beads and it's not fit for human consumption," he said.
"It gave me a slight buzziness for about three to five minutes, and that was it. I got no other effect from it."
Barrie Dalley, 52, who uses marijuana to combat the nausea associated with AIDS, said his experience with the Health Canada dope actually made him sick to his stomach.
Both Dalley and Wakeford are returning their 30-gram bags. Dalley is demanding his money back -- $150 plus taxes.
A third AIDS patient, Jari Dvorak, 62, says he's also unhappy with the product. "I'm still smoking it. I would prefer better, but it's all I've got," Dvorak said.
The marijuana is being grown on behalf of Health Canada in a vacant mine buried deep under Flin Flon, Manitoba. Prairie Plant Systems won a $5.75-million contract to grow marijuana Ottawa had intended to be studied to demonstrate whether or not cannabis is medically effective.
The department was compelled to begin distributing the pot to patients in July, after an Ontario order said patients should not be forced to buy the drug on the streets or from authorized growers forced to obtain seeds illegally.
On Monday, Canadians for Safe Access -- a patients' rights group that is pressing for supplies of safe, effective marijuana -- issued its own criticism of the government pot.
"This particular product wouldn't hold a candle to street level cannabis," spokesperson Philippe Lucas said.
His group conducted laboratory tests that indicated the Health Canada product has only about three per cent THC -- far short of the 10.2 per cent advertised.
In response, a spokesperson for Health Canada said the department can't accept laboratory findings from anonymous facilities.
"We question the validity of the test results because Canadians for Safe Access has been unwilling to reveal who did the testing, and when the testing was done, and under what conditions," Krista Apse said. She added that the approved cannabis was only released after it was submitted to rigorous quality tests.
But Dalley contends the proof was in the pudding -- it was the pot's poor potency that made him so sick, he threw up.
"It made me nauseous because I had to use so much of it," Dalley said. "It was so weak in potency that I really threw up."
No patients have complained directly to Health Canada so far, Apse said, and the department will not accept returns or provide refunds.
With a report from The Canadian Press
Linear Mode
