Battle over medical marijuana

There is an ongoing chill surrounding physicians who might consider providing the medical declaration that is a required part of a patient’s application to Health Canada for permission to possess or produce cannabis for personal medical purposes.

Some provincial regulatory authorities have actively discouraged physicians from providing this service to patients, some to the point of stating clearly that physicians should not support a patient’s application.

Statements by the association providing liability insurance for most of the country’s practising physicians recommend having the patient sign an extra form releasing the physician from any liability. All of this leaves some physicians wondering whether it’s worth the risk to help patients.

In its most recent ruling the court was unwilling, at least on the evidence presented in the case before it, to address this real barrier in the current system. (The door may still be open to another case with more substantial evidence about the challenge of access to knowledgeable and willing physicians.)

Sadly, the court also seems to have mischaracterized the position of public interest groups appearing before it, and therefore failed to consider the constructive proposal we put forward to remedy this problem.

The court suggested incorrectly that we wanted to eliminate the medical opinion requirement altogether. Rather, we argued if the government is going to require medical declarations to avoid criminal prosecution, patients unable to find a doctor willing to sign one must be guaranteed access to a body of medical experts who can decide the merits of a patient’s application.

Seriously ill people shouldn’t have to risk going to prison in order to get the medicine they need.

Meanwhile, the federal government has proposed new regulations on access to cannabis for medical purposes — but these proposals still won’t address this problem.

We can’t forget the underlying problem: the federal government maintains an overall prohibition on possession of cannabis for personal use. If the government won’t decriminalize, then it has an obligation to ensure that the threat of criminal prosecution doesn’t impede access for medical purposes.

It’s unacceptable to criminalize cannabis, set up a faulty system for people seeking exemptions from criminal liability to use cannabis as medicine, and then try to avoid any responsibility for the barriers created by that system.

It calls to mind other examples of the government’s indifference to the plight of people who need access to medicines.

Two months ago, just in time for World AIDS Day, the federal government killed a law that would make it easier for Canadian companies to sell lower-cost, generic AIDS drugs and other medicines to millions of people in developing countries.

Meanwhile, the government is negotiating new trade agreements — the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP)Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP) — that will very likely impose even more stringent obstacles to affordable medicines, not only for developing countries but for Canadians as well.

And now we have this latest chapter in the government’s ongoing battle over cannabis that helps people treat and manage serious illnesses.

What has the federal government got against sick people in need of medicine?

Richard Elliott is the executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Ryan Peck is the executive director of the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario, both of which jointly intervened in the Ontario court case.