Stupid Stevie is Dreaming the Impossible Dream.
He’s Created is an
Impossible Stalemate!
In the past
two years of my advocacy for Medical Marijuana I have watched the
disintegration of the Medical Marihuana Access
Regulations, their rejection
by the Courts, and their coming replacement by Harpo the Hypocrite’s Marihuana
for Medical Purposes Regulations. Everything’s ground to a halt.
We now have Three competing power
groups with no negotiation possible:
1. The first and foremost group is the
Asinine Harper Government with its completely misguided attempt to create a
monopoly system to produce and distribute Medical Marijuana. There is nothing
of Medical Benefit about their system because ir is designed to create a commercially
profitable system supplying a product that will not meet the manifold requirements
demanded by its potential customer base.
There is no concern over any positive or negative impact on
the Medical Consequences because they can always shift the responsibility for
the program’s failure on the Canadian Medical Association.
2. The second Power group is The
Canadian Medical Association. It is actively opposing the Government’s
shift of responsibility for authorizing Cannabis use from Health Canada to the Medical profession. They
have retaliated by launching what is an undeclared illegal wildcat strike and
lockout with their refusal to sign authorizations for Cannabis use. This
blanket denial is defended as necessary because of the lack of information about
the risk of long term use. There is little or no risk but they site the absence
of statistically validated pharmaceutical grade research and studies as cause
for refusal to cooperate.
3. The third and most concerned group
is all of us: the Potential Patient Customers. We, as a group, have
unreasonable expectations that will never be met with the current adversarial
approach of the other two.
It is a
stalemate that can only be resolved by negotiation and compromise and that
excludes the Government. There is no negotiation possible with a collection of
authoritarian lying sycophants with their noses stuck in Harpo’s ass. Reason is
not part of the Cons skill package.
So where does that
leave us?
In a position
where we can ignore Government influence and in a new position where we may be
able to resolve the differences in goals of Doctors and Patients. The appointment
of Dr. Louis Francescutti as President
of the CMA opens a new avenue of approach that I think can resolve difference.
He is a completely unknown player and last weekend I reached out, identified
myself and requested that he contact me regarding making peace between Doctors
and Patients.
As part of
that Peace pipe proposal, was a shorter introductory version of the following project
proposal and he will be copied with this expansion for his consideration.
THESMEEGOANGUY Rx to Stalemate
With two
groups interested in the Medical aspect of the problem but at extreme ends of
the treatment scale. The CMA wants good information regarding all aspects of
Cannabis therapy and the Potential Patient population has all the answers.
There is no communication between the two and unless that gap is eliminated there
will never be a solution found.
The
complexity of the problem becomes even more convoluted when the number of variables
to be considered is magnified a thousand times. A large number of the patients most
concerned are those who over the course of years have devised a personal
treatment that works for them. They have selected hybrids as a source crop, and
complex processing procedures to make the medications they use to successfully
alleviate their symptoms. As a collective they possess all the knowledge the
CMA needs and they need the CMA for a signature to purchase and possess their
raw materials.
I am no
doctor but I am a damned good statistician, a superb analyst and I’ve got excellent
common sense. Combine that with humility that is exceeded only by my good looks
and you wind up with brilliance or a fool. I believe that there is a way to
break this impasse and I am now proposing it to you for your judgment of its
merit. It will need polishing but it could work but only if the CMA assumes its
proper role as a leader of a profession devoted to the welfare of patients. At
the moment they are paralyzed by an obsession with risks and are blockading
effective treatment and that must stop.
The risks
they fear can neither be qualified nor quantified: What are the risks and how
serious are they? They don’t know what they fear and my proposal is that they
start doing some Research to find out what the Bogeyman is. The CMA is the only
one who can! They have mistakenly interpreted the MMPR as requiring them to
authorize the use of marijuana as a medical treatment. It does no such thing.
The
responsibility of the physician under the MMPR limited to the same declaration
required by the MMAR. Whatever steps taken to establish grounds for a
signature, all the attending Physician is doing is certifying an applicant has
symptoms of a disease that requires further treatment. There neither is any recommendation
as to what that treatment shall be, nor is it a prescription for medication. It
merely establishes the right to purchase and possess as much cannabis as
required for the patient’s medical needs. The origin of the Cannabis purchased,
legal or illegal, is none of the physician’s concern nor is the quantity
purchased. All his signature accomplishes is giving the Patient immunity from
arrest and prosecution for possessing his medication: If he elects to
buy pot instead of a stereo.
Let’s Make
A Deal
The one
thing that is certain is that Stephen Harper wants his Commercialization of
Marijuana to succeed. A continuing blockade to Customers by Doctors is not to
be desired when the doors to his Marihuana Monopoly scheme open for business in
April. The CMA should have a really good look at the huge pile of money he’s
talking about. A billion and a half?
Gee? I wonder what our Fearless
Leader would pay for Doctors to wholeheartedly agree to support his program in
the interests of speeding up the supply transfer to Licensed Growers and no
shortages to patients.
Minimum 10% Max? plus immunity from
risk. Not too much to ask:
This is risky business so the CMA
should request financing to start a Research Program to assess that risk. There
is a risk of a completely unknown probability and any Doctor participating as a
researcher and dealing within the program must be exempted with no liability
that for outcome under both Criminal or Civil jurisdictions.
The Program
would allow any licensed physician to participate as a researcher subject to
guidance regarding the Doctor/Patient relationship that will be established per
protocol.
This is a
simple trade. Any doctor feeling qualified to do so can establish a legally
binding relationship with a Patient that exchanges
access to
cannabis for complete disclosure of the patient’s treatment regimen and
detailed follow ups to assess progress.
The CMA
wants data related to both the short and long term use of marijuana regardless
of method of use or product used and dosage. There is none. Gather some! Get
off your ass and gather some
Patients
want maintenance of the level of medication they are currently using for relief
of their particular symptoms preferably in the same form or better if found.
Provide
Create a
research project to gather the data you want with a trade.
The Doctor
trades his approval for a patient’s medication requirement because he is
participating in research, supplying an experimental drug and recording the
treatment progress in order to assess its effects. Because it is an assessment
of risk there must be no responsibility or liability for an unexpected bad
outcome. Ensure that factor with Health Canada.
The Doctor must
be in control of the relationship and its procedural requirements but the
patient retains control over what is done with the marijuana after purchase.
The patient trades detailed access to his treatment regimen and medical
progress and any changes made for the right to obtain or create his own
medication, He agrees to periodic reports and/or assessments to be determined.
At this point there are 30,000+ potential research subjects waiting for the
opportunity to share their knowledge for weed. All they need to know is that some
doctor is going to look after their interests instead of their own and the
flood gates will open.
As a
statistician I am astounded by the immense pool of information about cannabis
medical utility that can be extracted from 30000 users and the speed that it
can be now be analyzed and understood.
With an
intelligent first examination by the doctor and a structured interview, his
physical symptomology and its severity is known, and a baseline established
that can be expanded to include:
1. A complete history of the patient’s
use and treatment mode
2. A marijuana sample to be used for
genetic and pharmacological analysis
3. A sample of any creams, oils, teas,
or any product ingested
4. An identification of the method of
use
If all
30000 of the growers responded for just that first interview you could pull
complete knowledge about every hybrid plant’s genetics and its potential as a
producer of whatever cannabinoids are the effectors in any product used. You
now have an established baseline: with a reasonable repeat assessment and
interview schedule and the help of the patient you can measure whatever is
changed in the treatment regimen and the THC and CBD composition in whatever
product they are using and a verbal follow up on physical benefits.
One other
point that should be noted by the CMA re their role in the matter: opposing is
simply inflicting aggravation on patients who already have enough to worry
about with the loss of personal and designated growth. Your signatures are of
diddly shit importance to any potential grower who is in the position of having
to grow his own because he cannot afford purchase it at current price levels.
They are doomed to grow criminally under threat of arrest by the Cops and
ruination from misguided building inspectors if their medication source is
discovered.
That is a
sourdough ending to what I think is a reasonable path to reconciliation and the
restoration of a Doctor/Patient relation based on respect and trust. That is a
far better outcome than a continuation of the current Doctor/Patient
relationship based on lies, paranoia, fear and contempt. It can’t get any worse
for the CMA image as seen by the Medical Marijuana Patient Community: They’re
an arrogant collection of unsympathetic liars who don’t give a damn about their
patient pool. These ethical cretins are primarily interested in their own
professional and financial security, not in our patient welfare. The CMA does
not represent doctors: It is simply a lobbyist representing the commercial
interests of a ridiculously intertwined snarl of corporations owned by Doctors
that owns and controls the Canadian Medical System.
Nasty and
unwelcome as this professional image has become, it’s completely warranted by
the twelve years of obstinacy, opposition and misinformation accorded Medical
Marijuana by the CMA that prompted me to write this.
Now I wait
for a reply from Dr. Francescutti, the new CMA President. He’s an unknown
quantity at this point. If he responds to a Commoner, and the nature of his
response will be most revealing as to where we are all going.
Now we wait
and Go Figure! Until ???
Thanks for
your interest
Blaine Barrett
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