Federal marijuana too potent to use

By: Dean Beeby and Zev Singer, Ottawa Citizen, 04/21/04

The federal government is having problems, again, as it tries to grow the nation's official crop of medical marijuana.

The news comes at a bad time for Health Canada, which has been told by an Ontario court to find a way to supply medically authorized users with the drug rather than making them get it from criminal dealers.

The federal department has been trying to produce a uniform, quality controlled crop since 2000, when it gave Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems a $5.75-million contract to grow the stuff inside a mine in Flin Flon, Man.

Health Canada is growing the drug so that it can test whether it is effective. It says it must complete the trials before it can supply needy patients with the drug.

But last year, it became clear that the project was having problems. Because the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse would not share its seeds, Prairie Plant systems used seeds from plants seized by Canadian police. Rather than a consistent crop, the result was a hodge-podge of 185 different varieties.

Asking for patience, the government said it would produce a second crop, using the two most promising strains from the first. Last summer, Health Minister Anne McLellan indicated clinical tests would begin by this winter. They didn't.

That's because the second crop is now having problems. One of the two strains is very potent, and it is so difficult to grow that it may be abandoned as too much trouble.

The flowering tops or buds of the strain contain between 20 and 25 per cent THC, the most active ingredient of marijuana, laboratory results show.

By contrast, American tests on marijuana seized by U.S. police forces suggest ordinary street marijuana averages about five per cent THC, with sinsemilla -- considered the champagne of weed -- averaging about 10 per cent.

But the highly potent Flin Flon strain is anemic and tough to grow successfully.

"We don't want high-maintenance plants," said Cindy Cripps-Prawak, chief of the federal government's medical marijuana program. "It's still unclear to me whether or not that is going to be the strain we're going to continue with."

The second strain, which is producing a THC content of between 13 and 18 per cent in its buds could be a better bet. According to Ms. Cripps-Prawak, such percentages are more in line with what researchers want.

But even still, the crop is nowhere near as abundant as the government had contracted for. Documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show that while the contract required delivery of 370 kilograms of high-quality marijuana last year, Prairie Plant Systems was able to produce only 244 kilograms.

A third strain was held in reserve by the company and Ms. Cripps-Prawak said the company will use it if a decision is made to abandon the high-potency strain.

In addition, the contract called for 50 kilograms of placebo product, containing less than 0.1 per cent THC, to be delivered last year. Researchers need a placebo product for blind trials to demonstrate whether THC is effective in alleviating some medical conditions.