So, yesterday we heard that the mark-up on the federal government's medical marijuana is 1,500 per cent.

Now we learn that Ottawa plans to give itself a monopoly.

Who do these guys think they are, the Hells Angels?

No, no, no, says Health Canada. We don't really make a profit on the marijuana we sell to sick people. And if we stop them from growing and buying their own dope, well, that would just move the program in line with the traditional way of distributing prescription drugs.

All of which is a tad bizarre to those who can't think of marijuana without conjuring up memories of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

It's not every day that your government is forced to defend itself against charges that it is ripping people off with overpriced, crappy pot.

"This is getting into the realm of the surreal at this point," says Philippe Lucas. And Lucas knows all about the surreal, living as he does in the legal No Man's Land of medical marijuana.

A total of 1,742 Canadians have Ottawa's blessing to smoke marijuana to alleviate suffering. Just over 1,000 of them have a licence to grow their own. A total of 167 have permission to get someone else to grow it for them. The only other official source is Health Canada, which gets its grass from Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which farms it in an old mine in Manitoba.

There was a fuss yesterday when newly released documents showed the amount charged by Health Canada -- $150 for 30 grams -- is 15 times greater than the amount it pays Prairie Plant, based on the price per kilogram. Ottawa was accused of profiting on the backs of sick people.

The feds replied that only a portion of its costs were considered in that calculation. "There is no markup," Health Canada spokesman Jason Bouzanis said in a telephone interview.

He also confirmed that Health Canada plans, at some undetermined point, to make itself the only official purveyor of pot, phasing out the rules that allow people to grow their own medical marijuana or get it from a designated supplier.

The idea is to bring practice in line with "traditional" prescription-drug distribution. Bouzanis doesn't say so, but it would also let Ottawa get a firmer grip on the leash.

That doesn't bode well for all the sort-of-tolerated "compassion clubs" that dole out medical marijuana to thousands and thousands of Canadians -- far more than the 1,742 licensed by Health Canada.

A phase-out would be nuts, the clubs argue. Given the chance, they say, they could sell a more varied product for less money, with no taxpayer involvement at all. And their marijuana would be better than the much-maligned Health Canada pot. ("Only the federal government could spend $10 million and fail to do what a 16-year-old with a closet and a good set of lights could do," says Lucas.)

Lucas leads the Vancouver Island Cannabis Society, a registered non-profit society that has operated out of a Cormorant Street storefront for seven years. It sells to 60 or 70 people who belong to Health Canada's medical-marijuana program, but also has 650 clients who have been recommended by a total of 250 doctors. "We make no secret about what we do here and how we do it," Lucas says.

Also in Victoria is the Cannabis Buyers Club on Johnson Street, with a client base over 2,000. It requires customers to offer proof of a diagnosed permanent disability or disease, though doesn't make them show a recommendation from a doctor.

Founder Ted Smith says more than 300 buyers have been cut off for breaking the club's rules, mostly for reselling to others; the club doesn't want to provide ammo to critics who see it as a back door to recreational drug use.

Providers of medical marijuana have gradually developed a patina of respectability.

Nursing students do practicums at the Vancouver Island Cannabis Society. The organization does peer-reviewed research. Lucas came within 118 votes of getting elected to Victoria city council.

A couple of years ago, Malaspina College even offered a how-to-grow-medical-marijuana course. It was taught by Eric Nash, a Duncan man who, with wife Wendy Little, runs a company called Island Harvest, which got organic certification for its pot. Island Harvest has Health Canada permission to sell marijuana to a single client, an 80-year-old arthritic Calgary man.

But when Nash, backed by letters from area politicians, recently asked Health Minister Tony Clement for permission to expand sales to 250 other licensed medical-marijuana users who want Island Harvest's product, the minister's office replied that Ottawa plans to phase out personal-use licences altogether, leaving Health Canada as the sole provider.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Supreme Court will deal next month with the fallout from a 2004 police raid at the compassion society's East Sooke production facility -- punctuating the uncertain boundaries of acceptance and tolerance when it comes to medical marijuana. This includes tolerance for Health Canada; Lucas expects federal failings to be highlighted.

Which brings us back to the question of whether you ever thought you would live to see your government accused of doing a lousy job selling pot.