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Regins: Medical pot rejected by patients
Source: CBC - http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=marijuana030917 - 09/17/03
Audio Link Too!!! Really entertaining to say the least...and informative.

Humorous: http://sask.cbc.ca/clips/Sask/ram-audio/manitoba_light.ram
Hear the Morning Edition's proposed Health Canada advertising campaign for medical marijuana (runs 2:00 in RealPlayer)

Informative: http://sask.cbc.ca/clips/Sask/ram-audio/poor_pot.ram
As It Happens, talks to Philippe Lucas, director of Canadians for Safe Access to medical marijuana, who tested the Health Canada product (runs 7:14 in RealPlayer)

REGINA - The President of the company that produces medicinal marijuana for the Federal Government is defending the quality of his pot after several of the 10 patients who received it said the quality isn't up to snuff. Medicinal pot users are saying the product from Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems smells bad and gives them headaches when they smoke it. Company president Bren Zettl said the first patients to test the government-issued pot thought it was fine.

Zetti said he's not sure where all the criticism is coming from. Prairie Plant Systems grew the marijuana under highly controlled conditions to meet specifications laid out by Health Canada. "This was the first run at this." Zettl sad. "We are fully expecting that we have to maintain the safety and consistency throughout the program." Prairie Plant Systems is happy to make changes, he said, but the order will have to come from Health Canada. Jim Wakeford, a Saskatchewan man now living in British Columbia who uses medicinal marijuana to help him with symptoms associated with AIDS, said Health Canada's pot smells bad and gave him a headache. Wakeford is an advocate for decriminalization and medicinal use. In 1999 Wakeford won an Ontario judge's permission to smoke marijuana without fear of criminal prosecution. "The stuff that they sent me from Prairie Plant Systems is schwag and that means it's really bad, inferior quality," he said. Wakeford sent the government-issued pot back to Prairie Plant Systems and wrote a letter to Health Canada outlining his disappointment. Wakeford says now he'll be forced to buy his pot on the black market.