Jenya
03-23-2004, 07:07 PM
Marijuana To Be Sold in British Columbia Drugstores
A Pilot Project in B.C. Will Allow Pharmacies to Sell to Medical Users.
CANADIAN PRESS (http://www.cp.org/)
Monday March 22, 2004
OTTAWA, ON -- Health Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana available in pharmacies, a move that could rapidly boost the number of registered medical users. Officials are organizing a pilot project in British Columbia, modelled on a year-old program in the Netherlands, that would allow medical users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore.
Currently, there are 78 medical users in Canada permitted to buy Health Canada marijuana, which is grown in Flin Flon, Man. The 30-gram bags of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier directly to patients or to their doctors.
But the department is changing the regulations to allow participating pharmacies to stock marijuana for sale to approved patients without a doctor's prescription, similar to regulations governing so-called morning-after pills, emergency contraceptives that can be obtained directly from a pharmacist without the need for a doctor's signature.
A notice of the change is expected to be made public this spring, allowing for drugstore distribution later in the year.
"We're just at the preliminary stages right now," said Robin O'Brien, a consulting pharmacist who is organizing the pilot project for Health Canada. "We're not quite sure how it's going to fit."
Canada would become the second country in the world after the Netherlands to allow the direct sale of medical marijuana in pharmacies. It would also mark the first time community drugstores in Canada could sell a controlled substance that is not an approved drug.
"The difficulty is that marijuana does not have a notice of compliance, so it doesn't have a drug identification number," O'Brien said from Vancouver.
"There's no pharmaceutical company that's going to come forward to take it through the regulatory process because they can't get a patent on it, so it's kind of a limbo drug."
The pilot project is slated for British Columbia because the province's college of pharmacists issued a groundbreaking statement last fall supporting the distribution of medical marijuana in pharmacies, unlike most health-care organizations which have opposed easier access.
Although the number of current approved users is small, O'Brien notes internal surveys for Health Canada have suggested up to seven per cent of the British Columbia population -- or about 290,000 people -- use marijuana for medical purposes, albeit illegally.
Easier availability of certified marijuana might encourage more medical users to register with the government, rapidly boosting the number taking advantage of legal dope, says O'Brien.
"We're not quite sure how big it could get," she said.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the method of ingestion. Pharmacists have long opposed tobacco products and do not want patients smoking marijuana.
Solutions could include developing a liquid form -- a tincture -- or capsules for oral ingestion, or the use of vapourizers that release the essential ingredient THC without burning.
A Pilot Project in B.C. Will Allow Pharmacies to Sell to Medical Users.
CANADIAN PRESS (http://www.cp.org/)
Monday March 22, 2004
OTTAWA, ON -- Health Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana available in pharmacies, a move that could rapidly boost the number of registered medical users. Officials are organizing a pilot project in British Columbia, modelled on a year-old program in the Netherlands, that would allow medical users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore.
Currently, there are 78 medical users in Canada permitted to buy Health Canada marijuana, which is grown in Flin Flon, Man. The 30-gram bags of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier directly to patients or to their doctors.
But the department is changing the regulations to allow participating pharmacies to stock marijuana for sale to approved patients without a doctor's prescription, similar to regulations governing so-called morning-after pills, emergency contraceptives that can be obtained directly from a pharmacist without the need for a doctor's signature.
A notice of the change is expected to be made public this spring, allowing for drugstore distribution later in the year.
"We're just at the preliminary stages right now," said Robin O'Brien, a consulting pharmacist who is organizing the pilot project for Health Canada. "We're not quite sure how it's going to fit."
Canada would become the second country in the world after the Netherlands to allow the direct sale of medical marijuana in pharmacies. It would also mark the first time community drugstores in Canada could sell a controlled substance that is not an approved drug.
"The difficulty is that marijuana does not have a notice of compliance, so it doesn't have a drug identification number," O'Brien said from Vancouver.
"There's no pharmaceutical company that's going to come forward to take it through the regulatory process because they can't get a patent on it, so it's kind of a limbo drug."
The pilot project is slated for British Columbia because the province's college of pharmacists issued a groundbreaking statement last fall supporting the distribution of medical marijuana in pharmacies, unlike most health-care organizations which have opposed easier access.
Although the number of current approved users is small, O'Brien notes internal surveys for Health Canada have suggested up to seven per cent of the British Columbia population -- or about 290,000 people -- use marijuana for medical purposes, albeit illegally.
Easier availability of certified marijuana might encourage more medical users to register with the government, rapidly boosting the number taking advantage of legal dope, says O'Brien.
"We're not quite sure how big it could get," she said.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the method of ingestion. Pharmacists have long opposed tobacco products and do not want patients smoking marijuana.
Solutions could include developing a liquid form -- a tincture -- or capsules for oral ingestion, or the use of vapourizers that release the essential ingredient THC without burning.