I HAVE A COMPLAINT!
You are Violating Your Oath!
Stop Lying to Your Patients.
Regain Your Integrity!
Attn; Dr.
Simpson and all College Registrars
Federation
of Medical Regulatory Authorities
|
Fleur-Ange
Lefebvre, Executive Director and CEO
|
College
of Physicians and Surgeons
|
Registrar
|
Alberta
|
Dr.
Trevor Theman
|
Saskatchewan
|
Dr.
Karen Shaw
|
Manitoba
|
Dr.
William Pope
|
Quebec
|
Dr. Yves
Robert
|
New
Brunswick
|
Dr. Ed
Schollenberg
|
Nova
Scotia
|
Dr.
Douglas A. (Gus) Grant
|
Prince
Edward Island
|
Dr.
Cyril Moyse
|
Newfoundland and Labrador
|
Dr.
Robert Young
|
Yukon
|
Ms.
Fiona Charbonneau
|
Nunavut
|
Ms.
Barbara Harvey
|
Ontario
|
Mr. Dan
Faulkner
|
Ladies and
Gentlemen: I have a Complaint:
The Medical Marijuana Policy of the CMA
Violates its own
Code of Ethics
After reviewing
the history of the Medical Marijuana Program I have come to the conclusion that
the Medical Profession in Canada, by their avoidance of the truth has,
possibly unknowingly, committed an act of professional misconduct, in that they
have engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct.
My name is
Blaine Barrett and I am a Medical Marijuana Advocate and Ethical Critic
residing in Surrey BC. I am 72, a concerned Senior Citizen and one of
40000 patients who were previously legally licensed to use and purchase Medical
Marijuana. Since September of this year all 40,000 of us are now compelled by
law to obtain a signature but cannot get a physician to sign applications for a
“renewal”! I suffer from Double
Depression and Neurological Pain in my back and legs. I have used Marijuana
since 1999 for mental control and pain management. I only require 1-2 gr./day
but when I need it I NEED
it!
I obtained my first Application Form B2 signature in 2007
and since my first purchase from them I have been witness to the Harper Government’s
Health Canada calculated destruction of the Medical
Marijuana Access Program. The implementation of the Marihuana
for Medical for Research Purposes Regulations has destroyed all
patients’ ability to obtain their medication from any legal source except of
the new crop of extremely expensive Licensed Producer (LP). In order for a
patient to become a customer he must provide a document signed by a doctor, and
that at this moment has created an
insurmountable blockade for access to a legal supply of Marijuana.
We need help. There are 40,000 qualifed applicants who need
a renewal.
What is
most disappointing is the Canadian Medical Association’s participation in the
destruction of the MMAR. They adopted a hostile Medical Marijuana Policy to act as
a deterrent to their members. Ever since 2003 the CMA has stubbornly refused to
comply with the MMAR policies that it
finds objectionable; and has advised its members not to participate in the
program by refusing to sign applications. This was an obstacle to patients that
has continually increased in severity for the past 11 years and it’s all based
on lies.
With the
creation of the MMRP program in Sept. 2013 Health Canada changed the source of our legal
supply to an LP but there still was a way to access with a doctor’s signature.
That access has now been eliminated as of May 13, 2014.
May 13, 2014, six months ago, Dr. Louis Hugo
Francescutti, the last president of the Canadian Medical Association made a
declaration and as the head of the advocacy organization had one message for
all Canadian doctors when it comes to prescribing marijuana:
“Don’t do it!”
The Deterioration of Medical Ethics
Related to Medical Marijuana
In the
course of our national history, there has never been another profession more
respected, admired, and trusted than the Canadian Medical Profession was in
1867. Three months after the founding of Canada, 164 Canadian Medical Professionals
coalesced to form the Canadian Medical Association to serve our national health
needs.
One of
their first concerns was with the moral and ethical character of Physicians to
ensure a continuation of the respect they held in Society. To ensure the
expectations were met, they devised and adopted a Code of Ethics to cover the
practice of Medicine in Canada and expand the scope of the
Hippocratic Oath they all swore to honour. This was last revised in 2004 and
last reviewed in Mar, 2012. It is based on the fundamental principles and
values of medical ethics, especially compassion, beneficence, non-malfeasance,
respect for persons, justice and accountability.
It is worthy
to note that at that time physicians relied on testimonial evidence alone. With
reference to Cannabis the evidence is still on hand: 5000 years of medical use
with not one death or any other established harmful consequence of its use; but
the CMA now opposes its use in any form. What happened to detour the CMA into a
complete reversal regarding Cannabis?
There
effectively was no CMA policy regarding marijuana for 100 years until the Hippy
Revolution of the 1960’s raised its profile and the War on Drugs commenced. The
CMA was not overly concerned about pot and prior to 2000 they were in favour of
decriminalization. Then the Canadian Government passed the Medical Marihuana Access
Regulations and the CMA got its nose out of joint because the
Government took the position of telling them what to do and not asking for
their help. Over the course of the last 11 years and 11 presidents the CMA has
rigidly opposed Medical Marijuana citing three primary objections and Physicians
are now obstructing the application process.
They now
condemn all testimonial evidence as a pack of lies and cannabis has no medical
benefit worthy of consideration? Despite 5000 years of no harm this opposition
is based on three complete lies that have intentionally distorted the publics
understanding of cannabis’ medical benefit.
THE TRIO
OF LIES!
Violations
of Ethics rule 4, 9, and 14
1.
Prescribing marijuana
to a patient is a risk that exposes him to too many unknown possible
detrimental effects and could harm the patient.
Over 5000
years of Testimonial evidence laud its wide range of medical benefits and
supports the lack of any possible harm: not one death or consequential health
problem from its use in any fashion. The CMA asserts there is no scientific
basis for that conclusion and any doctor prescribing it could be legally liable
for causing harm to a patient. Pure fiction! Every recipient of this complaint
is fully aware that there is no legal liability related to signing an
application and if there were, it is a simple matter to get a Waiver of
Responsibility form for the patient to sign from your College. It’s an
intentional denial and proven Cover Your Ass technique that every doctor is
well aware of.
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2.
There is inadequate
research of any benefits from its use that are up to the acceptable standards of the CMA.
At this
point these standards exclude almost all of the
Global research done by the international Medical community. Any research done by any other specialty or field
of practice will not be considered. Even the studies by foreign scientists of
the Nobel Laureate level are intentionally ignored. At this point over 100
cannabinoids have been identified and each, or a combination result in
beneficial results, but the CMA demands that each of these need to be verified
as acceptable to Pharmaceutical level testing. There is more than adequate
research that has been conducted in the past ten years being ignored by the CMA
that proves them to be intentional liars in denial of reality.
I suggest
you all bring yourselves up to date on current research and watch this
documentary:
4/20 Marijuana Documentary - Cannabis Research Studies -
2014
The CMA and
Health Canada are equally distortionary when it
comes to the hazards of Marijuana use. Despite all the claimed hazards they
have no Research Studies that meet their own CMA standards so its all Lies again.
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3.
The CMA holds that
Physicians who approve an application for Medical Marijuana are acting as a
Gateway to more serious drug addiction and criminal behaviour.
A
physician’s signature on an Application for Marijuana is deemed a Prescription
by the CMA: What a line of crap. Read both the MMAR and the MMPR
and neither requires a “Prescription”.
The MMAR requires
a signature on a Form B1 or B2. That signature is a declaration that the symptoms displayed by an applicant are enough
to warrant inclusion as a Licensee under the MMAR. The License permits the patient to purchase and possess dried
marijuana from Health Canada and no place else.
The MMRP
is similar in that all the doctor is doing is simply certifying that the applicant once again meets the symptom criteria
for medical marijuana and the signed application serves only as authority to
purchase dried marijuana from one of the new expensive Licensed Producers. It
has no other power!
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The three
foregoing statements, as justification for the CMA’s blockade of signatures, are
in direct conflict with the CMA Code of Ethics to which all physicians
are required to conform. There are 53 rules and I have only cited the three
most egregious violations by the Association before I deal with those of the
Colleges.
As Class examples:
4. Practise the art and science of medicine competently, with Integrity
Integrity= the
most important requirement in a man of Character!
Its primary and first component is Honesty!
“Risk”,
“No benefit” and “Addictive”
= Intentional, Calculated LIES!
You may not
agree with that conclusion but there are 40,000 of us who believe it. They know
better!
9. Refuse to participate in or
support practices that violate basic human rights.
We have a Charter Right to Access
our Medication.
Why are our physicians blocking
the way?
The CMA opposes Parental Control
of Treatment
Compare these two conflicts:
Ref:
Leukemia treatment disputes reopen debate whether parents should have final say
over children’s welfare
Cannabis
Extract Treatment for Terminal Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with a Philadelphia Chromosome Mutation
Why is the Medical Profession
exercising its power to deny Parental Rights and forcing children into
chemotherapy with all its known hazardous effects? In this instance they refuse
treatment with a medication with no known serious side effects in favour of
chemotherapy with a high probability of Chemo side effects:
Chemotherapy Induced Nausea and Vomiting, Mouth Sores,
(Mucositis), Neuropathy, Neutropenia and Infections, Diarrhea, Constipation,
and Hair loss.
14. Take all reasonable steps to
prevent harm to patients;
Intentional denial of access to a medication being used for symptom
relief, knowing full well that this act could result in serious recurrence of
symptoms, is not a reasonable step to avoid harm. Neither are Prescribing
Fentanyl and Opioids with devastating known side effects and an elevated risk
of death.
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These three
statements effectively establish that the CMA based their Marijuana Policy, on
lies that are obvious to any person who values integrity and has even a minimal
knowledge of Medical Marijuana use.
The Role
of the Colleges
I feel
betrayed by the opposition to Cannabis use as declared in CMA Official Policy.
I feel further dismayed by every Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons copying,
adopting and following the CMA’s lead blindly and proliferating the three lies.
All Colleges recently revised their Official Policies to add additional
restrictive procedures and practices that are totally ridiculous and completely
impractical. You have no idea of the complexity of the medication you are
trying to regulate: these additions to policy are based on ignorance with no
basis in fact.
It seems the Doctors have
now taken the initiative and in return for their signature want total control
of the Doctor/ Patient relationship. We have a profession that, after admitting
that they have very little knowledge about any of the aspects of Medicinal
Cannabis use or treatment: are demanding complete control of a patient’s
treatment under threat of terminating their prescription for disobedience. That
is not going to fly. You are acting prematurely and without consideration of
the fact that at the current time you are only dealing with the smallest
component of the patient pool by blindly following the Harper restriction of
medical use to smoking dried marijuana.
For the past eleven years the
medical profession has effectively watched the use of marijuana as a medication
grow and made no attempt to learn anything about marijuana therapy and
treatment modes. You are dealing with a patient population that for all that
time was improvising and developing different methods of treatment for a large
number of medical problems and 90% have abandoned smoking and developed a whole
range of treatment options that you are ignoring. Depending on the problem
there are oils like Phoenix Tears, Extracts, tinctures, edibles, ointments,
suppositories, etc. and the majority of physicians are ignorant of any of it.
At this point the
Doctor/Patient relationship between the 40000 Medical Marijuana Qualified Patients
and almost all 60000 of your CMA members is one of mistrust. Doctors view
patients as potential drug addicts and liability risk and Patients view Doctors
as a contemptible bunch of liars in denial of reality. We feel betrayed because
we trusted you as Good Samaritans and you have just ignored our need for help
for years and you are still stuck telling the same three lame lies as
justification for closing your eyes to the consequences of your indifference.
Stop and Reconsider
At this point, as a profession,
you are backed into a corner with no place to go. Salvage your integrity and
tell the truth. Simply admit you have reassessed your position and you were
wrong. Not publicly but privately to yourself and consider what I am proposing
as a change in tactics that can go a long way to restoring the Doctor/Patient
relationship to one of mutual trust.
At this time the profession
is fixated on only Dried Marijuana as the whole problem. I doubt even 10% of
the patients using Medical Marijuana do so by smoking. The majority require raw
plant product as a source material for whatever personal formula they are
making to treat themselves. They make oils, extracts, medibles, and salves in
1000+ differing ways and schedules of use. A lousy prescription, as you call it,
for the maximum 5 grams recommended by Ottawa does absolutely nothing if the
patient needs 50 pounds of raw herbal product per month for his treatment. You
all know nothing about the manufacture or use of any of these products in depth
and in about two years with legalization a physician’s permission will be null
and void and the distrust of the 90% of users will never be destroyed.
You all need to eat some
crow and show some moral fortitude and join with your patients to demand money
from the liars in the Harper Government to correct your lack of knowledge.
Research is necessary and attached to this Complaint you will find one possible
way to deal with the problem. My proposal is called the Risk Research Assessment Project and it is attached for your consideration.
I previously made this in the form of a proposal for a joint research project
to Dr. Louis Francescutti after his appointment to the CMA Presidency. I was
ignored as is standard practice for the CMA.
Since then I
have watched the profession fester with resentment and they are now in an
impossible situation making unreasonable demands that cannot be met because
they have destroyed all confidence in their role as a trustworthy source of
help.
I may be a fool
or simply overly optimistic but I believe that there is a way to break the
current impasse if only the profession will listen and understand that they
need to show some humanity and understanding and above all negotiate a middle
ground to establish a workable Doctor/Patient relationship in Cannabis
Treatment and establish its benefit on a factual basis.
So where does that leave us now?
In a position where we can
ignore Government influence and resolve the differences in goals of Doctors and
Patients by partnering to a new instructional model and eliminating the
shortage of information that so plagues Doctors in the assumption of the risk
of treatment. To this end I now repeat the proposal I made the CMA to establish
a joint Program to collect the missing information. It is far from perfect but
consideration of its development into a data base of great utility in a very
short time.
I would very much
appreciate an acknowledgement of receipt of this Complaint and thank you in
advance for any consideration you may give my proposal.
I would very much like to
know your reaction and would welcome any criticism or comment you may feel free
to provide as to how you collectively will proceed to correct these ethical
shortcomings.
Best
regards
____________
Blaine Barrett
#255,
10202-149st
Surrey BC V3R 3Z8
