The CMA Response to My Criticism

I Offended The CMA

They Requested I Shut Up!

Bonus: Today I got a letter in response to my recent critcism of Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti. He’s too damned uppity to respond himself so he had his hired help write me. LOL

Dear Mr. Barrett

I am writing to you in my capacity as CMA’s Senior Legal Counsel in regards to your most recent correspondence to the CMA President, Dr. L.H. Francescutti on the subject of medical marijuana.

While individuals are certainly entitled to differences on opinion on such subject matters, we wish to underline that some of your statements are not appropriate nor professional. Do not direct future statements of this nature to the CMA and its elected representatives. Please govern yourself accordingly.

Yours

Jean Nelson

                           <><><><><><><><><><>                                 My Reply

Dear Ms. Nelson:

Thank you for your contact if for no other reason than it’s an acknowledgement that Dr. Lou is finally reading my submissions. You might ask him to see my previous ones which were, at the start, very appropriate and professional- No response. The fact that the fool decided to out me on his ignore list prompted this one you object to. My comments are all appropriate when directed at and about Dr. Lou. They are presented in a professional manner that matches that of your lord and master and I actually resent having to lower my standards to match his in order to establish a contact.

You are CMA’s Senior Legal Counsel and obviously have to be familiar with the provisions both the MMAR and the MMRP. Why are you letting Dr. Lou get away with his continual repetition of his lie that the document doctor’s have to sign is a “prescription”? That is an outright lie and you know it.

The Letter now required by the MMRP effectively is the same MMAR Declaration confirming the symptoms qualifying an individual for a legal right to buy pot. The only change with the MMRP is the restriction of that right to purchase from only one vendor from their approved list. What Doctors sign is not a prescription but a permit to buy and the Gateway function signing will create is just Bull!

You are allowing the fool to present the CMA as a collection of cowards in denial of the benefits of Marijuana because they all fear loss of income and will lose big kickbacks and fringe benefits that Big Pharma has used to buy their loyalty and “Prescribing” drugs one hell of a lot more dangerous than pot. For heavens sake, Dr. Francescutti should be far more concerned with his followers actually killing patients with their over-prescribing of Big Pharma opiates and other drugs with fatal consequences.

I should point out that I have no need to slice up Dr. Lou’s most recent outpouring of anguish over the harassment and approach of the sales professionals for marijuana who copy the tactics of Big Pharma sales professionals promoting their poisons.

I have no need to blow his presentation all to hell because that has already effectively been done by a Teenager who before he even enters university has the ability to recognize bullshit for what it is. You might want to send him a “Shut Your Mouth” letter like you did me. Check it out, you can read it in the True North Times at http://www.truenorthtimes.ca/2014/07/26/canadian-doctors-considering-medical-marijuana/#.U9WOtm2RaK0.facebook

I have no intention of curbing my criticism of Dr. Lou when he advocates that his Physicians violate their Oath “Do no harm” and refuse to sign for a patient in pain and are content to sit back and wait for their victim to die. This asshole has caused more harm to the Medical Marijuana patient pool than any of his predecessors. There are 40,000 of them declaring they benefit from using cannabis for manifold diseases and conditions and Dr. Lou stands on his podium declaring it has “No Medical Benefit”, that there has been no valid research despite thousands of published technically valid studies, that there is great risk in its use despite 5000 years of medical and recreational use. He closes his eyes and refuses to see the benefits that changed Dr. Sanjay Gupta from an opponent into an advocate for its use. I don’t understand how he could have missed the “Weed” documentary with its national exposure a half dozen times on various networks. I believe he is fully aware of his intentional denial of benefit but he has painted himself into a corner where he simply cannot declare himself a liar.

As far as your order “Do not direct future statements of this nature to the CMA and its elected representatives.” You can shove it where the sun don’t shine! 

I intent to continue to challenge the stupidity and dishonorable conduct of both Dr. Lou and his followers in the CMA, with regard to Medical Marijuana. As long as they persist with their denial of help to me and my 40,000 fellow companions now being persecuted, I will do so using any language appropriate to the situation, witha level of professionalism suitable to that of my target.

I do not know if you believe you have any legal recourse to make me hold my tongue and I don’t really give a damn if you do. Go ahead and sue me. I can’t even afford my own medication because of CMA’s opposition. Go ahead and get me arrested and thrown in the clink. I don’t give a shit if you do. That would be an increase in my standard of living: free rent, free meals, a new circle of friends for me, and a welcome holiday for my wife.

Feel free to do anything you want. I’m not afraid of Harper, the Cops and not you. Anything you do to silence me will simply elevate my podium and public visibility to a higher level. I need all the publicity I can get

At one point in my life long past I actually believed that a Doctor was a man of Character and held the profession in high regard. Unfortunately Dr. Lou and the profession have demonstrated a complete lack of ”The Six Pillars of Character” the ethical qualities that earned my regard: .

 

Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, Citizenship.

Among these Pillars, “Honesty” is the most important component of each. The battery of lies regarding Cannabis that the CMA is spouting under D. Lou’s leadership, have destroyed all Six Pillars and the image the public is getting from their attitude is that of a bunch of moral derelicts.

 I have already published this reply completely on my blog at:

http://goan-smee.blogspot.ca/

Chew on that. I look forward to your response

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

The KKK of Canadian Medicine

The President of the CMA

Is

The Grand Wizard of the White Brotherhood

He changes to Green for the OR

 

My regular readers wil have noticed that a great deal of my recent focus has been on Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti, the current President of the Canadian Medical Association. I checked him out when I first noticed  him and he seemed a very brilliant and compassionate man. I watched his acceptance speech after his appointment as President of the CMA last spring and I was disappointed with the focus of his Presidency enhancing the image of a Doctor: not in the eyes of the public but as seen by the Profession: a polishing of their self image?

 

I next saw him last month as he presented himself at an interview in the Huffington Post. The article was to find out  the course he was advocating to his membership at the CMA, in his role as President, concerning the crisis in Medical Marijuana. I was stunned by his presentation as an ignorant buffoon with stupid, short, off the cuff answers to questions that deserved a professional response. His answers suited his presentation as an ignorant Asshole and I named him one here in my blog. His answers can be summed up in one sentence: His advice to his membership:

“Don’t sign an application for Cannabis!

Anyone who claims Marijuana has any Medical benefit is a liar!”

 I could not understand why he turned his coat until:

1.    I ran across a Stats Canada report on Canadian Mortality related to the medical condition requiring attention that caused the death.

2.    I read another column that set the Cost of Canadian Medical Care at an estimated $212 Billion; set the average income of Canadian Physicians at $250K with a range from $200K-307

3.    I read another column that moaned that the debt burden of graduates from Canadian Medical school was excessive and accounted for years of time delay and low physicians salaries to reach a level with any significant profit. Poor guys!

It’s all bullshit.

Dr. Francescutti is a brilliant man with a depth of knowledge that is truly amazing. I read several of his replies to questions at a meeting of the Health Committee and several other addresses to various groups. My conclusion is that Dr. Francescutti probably knows more about the benefits of Cannabis therapy than any one of us reading this. A man as brilliant and curious as he is does not sit in a position of ignorance in the middle of a propoganda war for 12 years. There  has been an exponential rise in testimonial evidence that marijuana has many benefits. There has also been an exponential rise in scientific studies by disciplines outside medicine all over the world he discounts because they do not meet the statistical support of a Big Pharma drug. He refuses to accept that it is not a drug but an herb with no known risks from its use.

 

It’s an act! Dr. Lou is fully aware that if the public see him in his suit and being the expert speaker he is they will know he is intentionally lying and not believe anything he says. If his public image is that of a Harley riding wanna be redneck who fires off answers without thinking his audience will think he’s a short term idiot that somehow got elected and he’ll be gone in less than a year. They might even forgive the membership a pass for simply being cowards afraid of his punitive side. It’s a simple delay tactic and that is all he and the CMA simply want: a time extension of its dismissal of Cannabis as a Cure because the potential loss of business.

Both he and the rest of the AMA are fully aware that Cannabis Can Cure Cancer. The last thing the medical profession wants is a cure for any condition requiring repeat medical care. It bulldozes their bottom line.

Cannabis Cures Cancer

The Stats Canada report on Mortality showed me that 40% of the entire cost of the Canadian Medical System was due to one single cause - Cancer. That is a huge chunk of money but how much is that?

The next column identified that the cost of the entire Medical System was $212 Billion and 40% amounted to $84 Billion for Cancer. That is a terrible financial monster the Medical Profession has become.

Just how terrible is almost unimaginable. The 84 billion is the cost to the state of all the doctors rendered services, in effect their salaries, and a job loss of 40% of the profession is not to be ignored. Already these articles are pointing out how hard it is to get by on their salaries of an average of about $250,000 with a maximum of $307,000. They are also moaning about how hard it is for Medical Graduates to repay huge student loans to cover their education on a salary range for residents of only $50,000-$80,000.

 

I will be commenting on these in a later post but please understand that the 84 billion for salaries is the tip of the iceberg. What about the loss of 40% to the mountain of investments they own in their interlocked snarl of Doctor Incorporated Businesses that owns almost all of the physical medical system of supply and demand and depends on repeat patient visits and care needs as its base of earnings.

How big are those investments? HUGE!! Go to: Cannabis Cures Cancer at

http://goan-smee.blogspot.ca/2013/12/cannabis-cures-cancer.html

More to follow:

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

 

The New Health Canada/CMA Conspiracy

Dr. Francescutti is No Asshole

He’s Just a Lousy Actor Mimicking One

EQUAL STUPIDITY ON BOTH SIDES

In her most recent announcement of changes to the MMRP Health Minister Rona Ambrose brilliantly and effectively drove a stake into the heart of all Medical Marijuana patients and pending applicants. She is simply used a little increase in administrative requirements and costs as a deterrent to any doctor considering treating a patient. That minor increase in costs is the tipping point because besides turning treatment and appointments of a patient into cost to the doctor, it also creates fear of a monitoring process by third parties that could lead to inspection by their colleges and damage to their practice.

Francescutti clapped his approval at the increased invasion of privacy because it stops the treatment of Cannabis patients by doctors. Dr. Francescutti and the CMA are fully aware that any “Cure” for a medical condition requiring treatment means the loss of a customer and all future profits. If cannabis does cure cancer and is proven to do so then the economic damage to the Canadian Medical System will be catastrophic. No-one seems to realize that a cure for cancer is direct threat to 40% of the jobs in the system. I have known that the impact of a cure would damage the medical care system but I never realized the size of the damage.

I found out that the entire cost of Canadian medical treatment last year is fairly accurately estimated to be about $212,000,000,000 (that’s Billion). WOW! Then I stumbled across a Stats Canada report on Mortality rates that assigned a percentage to about ten categories of the causes that created that great big number. The mind blowing revelation that 40% or $84 Billion of the cost of Canadian medical care is due to one single disease-CANCER!

If no-one else in the health system is aware of the danger of job reduction; Dr. Francescutti and his 75,000 CMA members certainly are. I had Dr. Francescutti pegged as an asshole because of presentation in an interview, but he’s not. He’s a brilliant man and he’s acting a part to play his public image. More on that in a follow-up post.

The reality for all of us who want access to Medical Marijuana is that there is no way to get it without great difficulty and expense and we are forced back into breaking the law again. We are denied access because any doctor stupid enough to sign for a patient is forced to comply with extremely complex procedural interview and examination instructions from his College; combined with excessive reporting of his compliance after every visit; plus now a third party evaluation of his compliance with the procedures; having any deviation being reported back to the College; and subject to disciplinary action. Finding a doctor was difficult before Rona’s announcement but now is almost impossible.

In simple terms: treatment of a marijuana Patient means a doctor must spend excess time for both interview and examination with no additional compensation for the lost time: then you have to spend even more time writing reports of your compliance with policy with no compensation for your lost time: Then you have to submit your reports for a microscopic examination for errors by a bunch of bean counters who justify their employment by finding them. They don’t trust you even then and the LP your patient buys his medication has to report every client he has and complete details of their purchase history to make certain they haven’t omitted to report that they were writing 5 gram prescriptions instead of the maximum 3 allowed. Only a fool or a martyr is going to accept a patient and sign a prescription to allow him to purchase his meds. The consequences are all negative and in the CMA’s best interests.

In the meantime it is business as usual and the longer the “Cure” is denied the members have secure employment. The Supreme Court will rule it NFG again but until Rona and Louis are gone we are all fucked.

Quotes:

Rona Ambrose
Minister of Health

“We have consulted with healthcare licensing bodies who expressed a need for the data on how doctors and nurses are authorizing marijuana to their patients and in which quantities. The proposed regulatory amendments will further strengthen public health and safety by ensuring appropriate oversight and monitoring.”

???

As if there wasn’t enough already, she guarantee access to spyware in a doctor’s office. That’s Big Brother looking over your shoulder, Doc.:Keep your nose clean.

<><><><><><><><>

Dr. Trevor Theman
President: Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada

"The Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada strongly supports the proposed amendments that will enable its Members to exercise their duty in the best interest of the public. Medical regulatory authorities require access to this information so they can hold physicians accountable to a high standard of care when they choose to authorize patient access to marijuana for medical purposes."

???

Of course Dr. Theman strongly supports this because it’s a guarantee of work for his crew of fact checkers looking for piddley shit to report and look useful; just a wee bit of bias. It ignores the fact that there is no set standard of care for Cannabis treatment in Canada because the Medical Community who will create the standards doesn’t know shit from shinola when it comes to treatment much less dosage.

I will end this now but a follow up post will follow to examine in detail just what motivates a brilliant speaker and master of language like Francescutti try to appear like a stupid fool who can’t put more than two or three grunts together to answer a question an interview with a display of hostility and disbelief.

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

Who is this Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti?

Mr. Asshole Himself

Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti

I got my first impression of Dr. Francescutti from an article in the Vancouver Sun in 2011 when he was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/02/01/doctors-too-self-interested-to-put-patients-first-royal-

I was extremely impressed by his vision and grateful that he was trying to impress his understanding on the medical community.

Mistake #1- I Was Impressed!

When I saw his acceptance speech outlining his priorities as the new President of the Canadian Medical Association in 2013. I was disappointed he made no mention of the blockade of signatures and the Medical Marijuana problem and a little disappointed that his message to the Association membership concerned only the image of a Physician and how to restore it. Unfortunately it was self-image of a Physician as seen by the profession.

Mistake #2- I Let That Slide By!

There was no recognition in his speech that the public image of the Association was that of a bunch of stubborn bastards refusing to accept the reality of marijuana benefits. Over the life of the MMAR the CMA has been nothing but a constant source of criticism and objections to any suggestion of benefits and their role in the Program. They effectively killed the Program with repetition of a platform of lies and distortions that was formulated at the inception of the Program.

There were 4 main components to that platform

1.    no acceptable scientific evidence of any medical benefit.

2.    The horrible unknown risks of its long term use as a medication

3.    being asked to “prescribe” a Gateway drug leading to addiction

4.    denial of 5000 years testimonial evidence of benefits

Nevertheless I attempted to contact him three times to attempt to bridge the gap between patients and doctors and even sent him a reasonable solution with a plan for a Risk Research program between Physicians and Patients involving the sharing of information and guidance from each side see:

http://goan-smee.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-risk-research-assessment-program.html

I ran through my proposal again and it still could work: all it needs is for Francescutti to get off his high horse and listen to reason.

He Opened My Eyes With His Mouth

Then I ran across his interview by the Huffington Post and I was stunned by his presentation and his complete ignorance or understanding of the benefits of marijuana. This was a complete reversal of the man I thought he was and I began to research him to find out just what was going on. What I found out is not of my liking nor do I think of yours.

So. Who is He?

He’s a complete mystery to me. All the material regarding him that I researched had nothing but praise for his capacity as an expert beyond belief in a range of subjects that is amazing. I looked at his education and career history and nowhere did he spend enough time training in any field to absorb the amount of knowledge attributed to him. WTF? How did he get that reputation s I read it completely and was surprised to find that it is his personal website by finding his personal invitations to: “e-mail me”: lou@drlou.ca, “contact my office”:
 780-492-5775 and to participate in an “audience survey” (link) and let me know what you thought of my presentation!

The website exposes a significant expenditure for a competent staff because it is obviously constructed by professional web experts and written by professional propagandists and neither comes cheap!

Combine that with his extensive travel costs and the amount is not in a General Practitioners budget? Where’s he get it?

Turns out he’s a millionaire! How do I know that? From his website and how his staff describes how he lives:

“Lou spends every spare minute with his family.  An amateur stone mason and timber framer, Lou's acreage, home to many interesting projects, is enough to keep any person busy full-time, but he manages.  An authentic Italian pizza oven, a get-away log cabin, a hockey rink, a pond, a maze of trails, and an authentic jail house, Lou's personal life is as interesting and intriguing as his professional endeavors.”

That Lou has enough time at home to maintain a palace like that: between his world travels, lectures, teaching and playing doctor at two Edmonton locations: is pure bullshit.

So is the rest of his website; It’s a non-stop stream of 4 pages of nothing but exaggeration of his excellence at everything, with carefully selected use of flowery language that presents him as a model to follow.

I am not going to say more about the site but will let you make your own judgement of its portrayal of the man. To save you that time, the items in the following list are simply repeated phrases and attributes as used to describe him: Forgive the weird indenting, I can’t get rid of it??

1.    President of the Canadian Medical Association,

2.    Past-President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada,

3.    one of Canada's leading medical visionaries

4.    an emergency room physician,

5.    an educator,

6.    program developer

7.    speaks to the masses, connecting with individuals

8.    regarded internationally for his corporate mentorship sessions and safety culture seminars

9.    visionary, educator, speaker, and doctor

10.                       Emergency Medical Technician in Canada's Arctic,

11.                       MD and PhD at the University of Alberta.

12.                       founded the Injury Awareness and Prevention Centre

13.                       Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore, Master of Public Health degree and a Preventive Medicine Residency

14.                       Professor in the School of Public Health

15.                       Adjunct in the Department of Emergency Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta,

16.                       Works as an emergency physician in the Emergency Departments of the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Northeast Community Health Centre in Edmonton.

17.                       Alberta Coalition for Cellphone-Free Driving, for example, which Lou founded in 2005

18.                       promotes safety culture and corporate mentorship

19.                       delivering his provocative and compelling message to everyone from telephone and power workers to oilfield laborers and engineering professionals

20.                       speaking to small and large groups of individuals, new and mature organizations and corporations, students, and government agencies--not to mention international authorities and organizations.

21.                       Offering a bold and ultra-real-world perspective on topics such as safety culture, substance abuse, injury, injury prevention, fatigue, mental illness, communications and health promotion,

22.                       Everyone benefits from hearing Lou's message

23.                       His lectures are a recurring event at many educational institutions, including Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton,

24.                       Dr. Francescutti is internationally regarded as a medical expert and visionary. 

25.                       His years of mentorship and inspirational speaking put him in high demand for international consulting, mentorship, and speaking engagements  from Norway to New Zealand, and Sweden to the United States,

26.                       Dr. Francescutti is one of Canada's most revered medical figures, being acknowledged around the world for his unique approach to injury control and prevention.

One other thing that gives me doubts about Dr. Francescutti is the fact that for all his years in training and in academia he has not published one paper worthy enough to declare in the sites paean of his accomplishments. There is no paper trail showing that he actually learned anything worth sharing to his fellows in academia. The other big question is “Where did all that money to create a Country estate worthy of Royalty come from?”. You don’t earn it from the practice of Medicine as a Professor on tenure with part time employment as an Emergency Room doctor in an Edmonton hospital. I conclude it had to come from his talent as a bullshit artist with speaker fees and a genius for self promotion almost as good as Donald Trump.

To bring this indictment to an end I have concluded that at this time he is Medical Marijuana’s chief enemy and a traitor to his Oath to Do No Harm. I have no idea how to counter his influence but we can all take comfort that he has a limited time on his seat as leader of the “Parliament of Medicine” as he describes the Association. He leads it with the same arrogance and lies as Harper in his imitation of dictatorial governance in Ottawa. His term as President is only two years and over half of that is already history. All of us can look forward to his disappearance in 2015 along with Harper. It can’t come soon enough.

In the interim, since the good Doctor ha requested feedback, his request should be granted! I suggest that if anyone disagrees with his asshole position on the medicinal benefits of marijuana they tell him so by clicking on the e-mail link he thoughtfully provided, lou@drlou.ca, participate in his “audience survey” and let him know what you thought of his presentation!”

That is how I sum up Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti and my conclusion: My labelling him an “Asshole” is perfectly justified:

Arrogance + Ignorance + Bullshit = Asshole

Proof Positive!

Go figure:

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

The Risk Research Assessment Program A Proposal for Peace!

The Risk Research Assessment Program

A Proposal for Peace!

The Canadian Medical Association and the Provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons have finally succeeded in sticking their heads all the way up where the sun doesn’t shine. 

The Doctors have now taken the initiative and in return for their signature want total control of the Doctor/ Patient relationship. They accompany this with an exorbitant ever escalating scale of fees in the hundreds of dollars. We have a profession that, after admitting that they don’t know shit from shinola about any of the aspects of Medicinal Cannabis use or treatment, are demanding complete control of a patients treatment under threat of terminating their prescription for disobedience.

That is not going to fly. There is no way that a patient who has spent years developing a mode of treatment that suits his complaint is going to surrender control over his treatment and obey a dumb-fucker on a learning curve from nowhere.

What is most surprising to me is that I advised them to take the exact opposite approach and give the patient control of his treatment and teach the doctor out of his dumb-fucker state. I 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.

The Risk Research Assessment Program

We have 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 and use our Combined strength against Harper for leverage

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. 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.

Thanks for your interest

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy