Standing Committee on Public Accounts (PACP)

Medical marijuana use linked to lower prescription drug use.

'People are really using marijuana as medicine,' researcher says.

Jul 06, 2016 6:02 PM ET

American states that allow their residents to use marijuana for medical purposes have seen a marked decline in prescription drug use among the elderly and disabled, according to a study published Wednesday.

The University of Georgia study looked at the costs of Medicare's prescription drug benefit program in 2013 — a time when 17 states and the District of Columbia had passed medical marijuana laws.

Researchers estimated the savings from lower prescription drug use in areas that had medical marijuana laws at $165.2 million US over the full year.

If every state legalized medical marijuana, the study forecast that Medicare would save more than $468 million US a year on pharmaceuticals for disabled Americans and those 65 and older.

Those figures, according to the researchers, suggest that some people are using marijuana as an alternative to prescription drugs to treat ailments such as pain, depression and sleep disorders.

"The results suggest people are really using marijuana as medicine and not just using it for recreational purposes," said study lead author Ashley Bradford in a statement.

Researchers looked at prescription data for nine conditions in which marijuana could serve as an alternative treatment to prescription drugs:

Anxiety.
Depression.
Glaucoma.
Nausea.
Pain.
Psychosis.
Seizures.
Sleep disorders.
Spasticity.
The data showed that, in the areas where medical marijuana was allowed, fewer prescriptions were written for every category except glaucoma, which was exactly what they expected. While marijuana does lower eye pressure in those with glaucoma, its effects last only about an hour. So researchers correctly predicted that the number of daily doses for glaucoma medication would increase because taking marijuana every hour would not be realistic.

"It turns out that glaucoma is one of the most Googled searches linked to marijuana, right after pain," said David Bradford, a health economist at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs and co-author of the study. "No doctor is going to let [a glaucoma] patient walk out without being treated."

The new study, published in Health Affairs, was the first to ask if there's any evidence that medical marijuana is being used as medicine, Bradford told Reuters. The answer is yes, said Bradford. "When states turned on medical marijuana laws, we did see a rather substantial turn away from FDA-approved medicine," he said.

For pain, the annual number of daily doses prescribed per physician fell by more than 11 per cent. "The results show that marijuana might be beneficial with diverting people away from opioids," Bradford said.

Medicare does not pay for medicinal marijuana in the U.S., nor do private health insurance plans.

Figures obtained by CBC News two months ago showed that 22 per cent of the money paid to veterans by the Canadian government for prescribed drugs in the fiscal year 2015-16 went toward medical cannabis.

Kyle Atkinson, president of Trauma Healing Centers — a company that helps veterans file reimbursement claims for medicinal marijuana — told CBC News at the time that he suspected that some of the 1,700 veterans using medical cannabis may have stopped using other prescription drugs.

In 2001, Canada became the first country in the world to adopt a formal system to regulate the medicinal use of marijuana.

Tens of thousands of Canadians are now allowed to legally use medical marijuana. The Trudeau government says legislation to legalize marijuana possession will be ready by the spring of 2017.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/medical-marijuana-prescription-drugs-1.3667375

Marijuana was criminalized in 1923, but why?

May 06, 2014 12:11 PM ET

Pot activists in Canada who took part in the annual "Global Marijuana March" on May 3 demanded the decriminalization of marijuana.

They might also have asked why it became illegal in the first place.

That happened in 1923, and if there was any kind of parliamentary debate, historians have been unable to find a record of it.

When Parliament decided to add marijuana to the schedule of proscribed drugs that year, Canada became one of the first countries to make smoking pot illegal. The U.S. didn't accomplish that until 14 years later, in the midst of the Great Depression.

In 1923, then prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal government introduced an Act to Prohibit the Improper Use of Opium and other Drugs. The federal health minister at the time, Henri Beland, said the bill was a consolidation of other legislation that had been passed over the previous few years, with some changes.

At the time, the only drugs on the schedule were opium, morphine, cocaine and eucaine (a local anesthetic first introduced as a substitute for cocaine).

The new bill added three drugs to the proscribed list: heroin, codeine and "cannabis indica (Indian hemp) or hasheesh."

The only mention of the proposed changes to the schedule recorded in Hansard was on April 23, when Beland told the House of Commons, "There is a new drug in the schedule."

In fact, there were actually three new drugs. Historian Catherine Carstairs says Beland was likely referring to cannabis when he said there was “a new drug,” because in the government's view, "the other two are extensions of other products that had already been added to the schedule."

Carstairs is the author of Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation and Power in Canada, 1920-1961 and chair of the University of Guelph's history department.

The next month, on May 3, when it was the Senate's turn to review the legislation, Raoul Dandurand, the Liberal government's leader in the Senate, told his colleagues, "There is only one addition to the schedule: Cannabis Indica (Indian Hemp) or hasheesh."

And, in what may be the most detailed account of these 1923 events, the authors of the 1991 book Panic and Indifference: The Politics of Canada's Drug Laws, state that the health department’s narcotic division's files contain a draft of the bill that does not include cannabis. There are also several carbon copies, and to one of them was added, "Cannabis Indica (Indian Hemp) or hasheesh."

It seems no one knows who added that phrase, or ordered it added. But both the House and the Senate agreed to the additions without any discussion.

Heroin and codeine also proscribed

One reason that no one in Parliament asked about or challenged the addition of marijuana to the schedule may be because little was known about the drug in Canada at the time, and very few people were smoking it.

We could find no references to marijuana in either the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail in 1923. And there were no police seizures of marijuana until 1932.

Looking back, it may seem odd that a decision that has in one way or another seriously affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians took place without debate.

There was also no debate in Parliament then about adding the better-known heroin and codeine to the schedule of proscribed drugs either.

Heroin had been on the market since 1898, courtesy of the Bayer pharmaceutical company.

Heroin is the brand name for a semi-synthetic compound derived from morphine, so authorities had probably considered it as a proscribed drug since the first schedule was passed in 1911, which included "morphine, its salts and compounds."

Proscribing codeine was more controversial, although after it was added doctors, druggists and the pharmaceutical industry successfully lobbied to have codeine decriminalized.

It was removed from the schedule in 1925, though the U.S. government and the Canadian government’s own narcotic division criticized the decision.

Emily Murphy's ‘new menace’

A 1922 book, The Black Candle, by Emily Murphy, is frequently given as the explanation for the King government's move against marijuana. However, no evidence beyond coincidence has been put forward that the book, or Murphy, influenced the government's decision.

The book is based on a series of articles Murphy, then a judge, wrote for Maclean's magazine in 1920. The series did not mention marijuana but her book has a seven-page chapter called, her spelling, "Marahuana -- a new menace."

Murphy starts out by noting "the drug is not really new" and "comparatively unknown in the United States and Canada."

But, today, that is arguably the best-known chapter in the book, even though historians have not uncovered evidence that this chapter attracted much public attention in its early years.

Murphy herself is best remembered as one of the Famous Five, from the celebrated “persons case” — that women qualify as persons for the purpose of being appointed to the Senate — a suit that eventually won the day in the British Privy Council.

With no parliamentary debate, no evidence of public debate or discussion, and no paper trail about why marijuana was criminalized in 1923, it's understandable why people would later link the decision to The Black Candle. But Carstairs says it's probably just happenstance.

She also told CBC News, "There were insinuations in the records that the bureaucrats at the division of narcotic control did not think very highly of Emily Murphy and did not pay attention to what she was writing about, and they didn't consider her a particularly accurate or valuable source."

A marijuana mystery

Unlike the other drugs on the government’s proscribed list, the book Panic and Indifference observes that marijuana was criminalized in Canada long before it could be defined as a social problem. "Why this was so remains a mystery."

However, this was an era of prohibition and control, and before he became prime minister, Mackenzie King had been a strong advocate for prohibiting opium, which happened in 1908.

Carstairs says that there's no record King was then keeping a close eye on the drug file and she has found no reference to marijuana in his diaries.

There's also no reason to think there was any science behind the decision. The major report of the era, and it was seven volumes in length, was Britain's Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report, published in 1894.

"Moderate use practically produces no ill effects," according to the report, and the evidence the commission heard "shows most clearly how little injury society has hitherto sustained from hemp drugs."

An alternative theory for the marijuana ban was put forward in 1974 by Alexander Morrison, an assistant deputy minister at Health Canada. "Col. Sharman, then Director of the Federal Division of Narcotic Control, returned from meetings of the League of Nations convinced that cannabis would soon fall under international control. In anticipation of such action, he moved to have it added to the list of drugs controlled under Canadian law."

However, Sharman did not become the director of the division until 1927, and before that he was at the department of agriculture, so that explanation goes up in smoke.

Nevertheless, Carstairs argues, "There would have been significant international pressures to do so. Canada liked to see itself as a leader in the drive for international drug control. We were actively involved in all of the international discussions."

Despite this, she says there was "no international sentiment against smoking marijuana" at the time.

Criminalizing marijuana "had almost no impact in the years immediately after it was added but the fact that it was added has certainly had long-term consequences," Carstairs says.

Today, when protesters demand decriminalization, the federal government may be able to come up with reasons not to do so, but it would be hard-pressed to explain why it was criminalized in the first place.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/marijuana-was-criminalized-in-1923-but-why-1.2630436

Beleave Appoints Retired Lieutenant Colonel Dana Gidlow as Head of Veteran Affairs and Community Outreach.

FYI Beleave Inc is a biotech company focused on the production of medical marijuana in Canada.

June 16, 2016

TORONTO, June 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beleave Inc. (CSE:BE) (“Beleave” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the addition of retired Lieutenant Colonel Dana Gidlow as the company’s Head of Veteran Affairs and Community Outreach.

Mr. Gidlow is President of the Toronto Police Military Veterans Association, an organization formed in 1922, which is comprised of veterans of armed conflicts either with past service in Military Units, United Nations Peace Keeping Operations or service in Reserve Units with postings to areas of conflict such as Afghanistan.

Mr. Gidlow served in the Canadian Forces Reserve Army from 1968 to 2011 when he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 43 years of service. In his time in the Canadian Forces, Mr. Gidlow did three tours, most recently to Afghanistan where he advised the Afghan National Police on site security.

“We are beyond pleased to be able to welcome Dana, and who better to connect with such an important demographic than someone who truly understands what it means to be a veteran,” commented Beleave CEO Roger Ferreira, “We look forward to working closely with Dana not only as we connect with our military veterans, but various groups. Dana will also play an important role in ensuring our facilities adhere to the highest in security standards.”

In addition to Mr. Gidlow’s service in the Canadian Forces, he served in the Toronto Police Service for 34 years and retired as a Supervisor in 2008. In this time, Mr. Gidlow worked on the Major Crime Unit, as a Criminal investigations Detective, and even as a Media Awareness Instructor. Mr. Gidlow was also deployed to Kosovo as an International Police Officer where among other roles, he investigated in theft and smuggling cases.

About Beleave

Beleave Inc. is a biotech company committed to becoming a licensed producer under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (the "MMPR"). Beleave's wholly owned subsidiary First Access Medical Inc. ("FAM") has applied for a license to cultivate and sell medical marijuana pursuant to the MMPR. As of the date hereof, FAM has successfully advanced past the security clearance stage and is currently in the review stage of the licensing process. Beleave's purpose built facility is located near Hamilton, Ontario. Beleave is traded on the CSE under the symbol BE, with 17,380,823 common shares outstanding (25,541,826 on a fully diluted basis).

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements within this press release relating to the Company constitute “forward-looking statements”, within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, business plans and / or objectives, sales programs, forecasts and projections, assumptions, expectations, and/or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements". Such "forward-looking statements" involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to commercial operations, including production and / or sales of medical marijuana, quantities of future medical marijuana production, anticipated revenues in connection with such sales, the overall projected size of the market, completion and / or expansion of production facilities, and other information that is based on forecasts of future results, estimates of production not yet determinable, and other key management assumptions. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and involve risk and uncertainties relating to the Company's historical experience with medical marijuana operations, regulatory changes, timeliness of government approvals for the granting of permits and licenses, changes in medical marijuana prices, actual operating performance of facilities, and other uninsured risks. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Further, there can be no assurance that Beleave’s medical marijuana license application will be approved by Health Canada, or that any prospective projects in the industry will be successfully completed.

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2016/06/16/beleave-appoints-retired-lieutenant-colonel-dana-gidlow-as-head-of-veteran

You can get some MJ that is very low THC but high in a compound that reduces inflammation! But like all drugs some work for some and don't work for others.

Hi all, just wanted to ask, since my last post a couple months ago, things have been mildly better. i have been working with my doctor and the medicanl mj topic has been about. i tried some before, though not perscribed and it through me through a loop. i hated every second of it. made me think to much and hate myself. i concentrated far too much on my issues. i flushed the remainder and drank like a fish to numb myself out.
so recently after talking to my doc about my pastexperience, we tried the lowest dose on nebuline (a pill form mj) there is. all that did was cause 4 days of headaches. stopped taking it after the fourth day. just wasn't worth it. after talking to my VAC case mjr, she says majourity of her afghan vets are on the vaporizer with no complaints. with my past experience with mj, should i give this a try? or am i one of the few it won't agree with? any insite is appreicated. excuse all of my spelling, but i drink alot.

Well, I have an appointment for my prescription at a place called Trauma Healing Centre (THC). I had to fill out some pretty extensive paperwork, listing all the medications and treatments I have tried. All understandable though. The only thing I'm not happy with is having to pay a $100 administration fee.

Do these a-holes live with chronic pain?
If their answer is "no", they can go away.
What is wrong with these people?
They are not here to tell us what to do?
We are becoming a dictatorship nation, you all know that right?
Now they have absolute control with all the technology and money they have.
Can you make a difference? Not me.
How can you afford to go into politics on the lowest paid rank...lmao.
Politics are jokes and so are politicians.
See the interview with the big Kent ref. allied sailor, FAiLURE!!!
Media relations and Liberals= failure
CCR EH!

Report 4, Drug Benefits—Veterans Affairs Canada, of the Spring 2016 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada

Standing Committee on Public Accounts (PACP)


Witnesses
Office of the Auditor General of Canada
• Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada
• Casey Thomas, Principal
Department of Veterans Affairs
• Walter Natynczyk, Deputy Minister
• Michel Doiron, Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch
• Cyd Courchesne, Director General, Health Professionals and Chief Medical Officer


http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/XRender/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20160609/-1/25206?globalstreamId=14&useragent=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28Linux%3B+Android+5.0.1%3B+SGH-I337M+Build%2FLRX22C%29+AppleWebKit%2F537.36+%28KHTML%2C+like+Gecko%29+Chrome%2F50.0.2661.89+Mobile+Safari%2F537.36

Walt and company taking questions on VAC drug policy but mainly on medical marijuana




Cheers