Cannabis Is Just Another Prescription Drug

[Oz]

GRONINGEN, Netherlands -- With a lever controlled by his left arm -- the only part of his body he still can move -- Peter Boonman maneuvers his motorized wheelchair across his spacious apartment to a table where he keeps a vaporizing pipe and small plastic pharmaceutical containers of pungent marijuana.

 

Getting high makes Mr. Boonman's life bearable. Since his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed at the end of the 1980s, his body has slowly deteriorated. At 52 years old, he is almost entirely paralyzed and is confined to his wheelchair or bed.

 

"The MS makes me tired," he said. "The marijuana gives me strength and energy."

 

Mr. Boonman smokes about three grams of marijuana each day. When he runs low, he picks up the phone and calls a pharmacy. A pharmacist delivers the pot in small plastic jars -- usually 20 bottles, enough to last him a month.

 

Eighty percent of the cost is covered by national health insurance.

 

Last March, the Netherlands passed a law allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients suffering from a variety of ailments, including multiple sclerosis, AIDS and cancer. The Dutch government then contracted with two growers to produce the medicinal marijuana under strict guidelines to ensure quality and cleanliness. By September, the world's first large-scale government-contracted supplies of pot reached pharmacy shelves.

 

The Netherlands long has practiced what it considers a pragmatic approach to drugs, and distinguishes between hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, and so-called soft drugs, such as marijuana and hashish. The policy decriminalizes possession of soft drugs for personal use and allows them to be sold in designated "coffee shops."

 

Now, the Netherlands has gone even further, treating marijuana as a prescription drug. It is available at pharmacies in two potencies, and some patients prescribed pot can have a portion of it covered by their health insurance, like other medications.

 

Canada became the first country, in 2001, to legalize marijuana for medical use. But the Canadian law didn't provide a way for people who wanted marijuana to get it. Legalization advocates say the Dutch system, making marijuana available in pharmacies, is more practical.

 

Paul van Hoorn, 71, and his wife, Jo, 70, are among the 20,000 Dutch patients who use marijuana for medical reasons. They began in 2001, she for chronic rheumatism, he for glaucoma.

 

In their small Rotterdam home, they smoke marijuana each night at 8:30. Paul van Hoorn said he had bad skin rashes that cleared up when he began smoking marijuana. He said he reads the Bible after smoking, and he said that after he began using marijuana, he could read the fine print in the Scriptures more clearly. Jo van Hoorn said she tried various medicines, including morphine, but nothing stopped the aching in her legs, until she tried marijuana.

 

For late starters such as the van Hoorns, Dutch doctors recommend that they not smoke marijuana in the traditional way -- rolling it into a cigarette, or joint, or by using a water pipe. Instead, doctors suggest that patients make marijuana tea or use the vaporizing method.

 

The medicinal marijuana law is being criticized by some for not going far enough. One well-known marijuana user, Ger de Zwaan, 51, chairman of the

Patients for Medical Marijuana Foundation, based in Rotterdam, said the Dutch law is flawed because government controls keep the price of pot at pharmacies much higher than it is at coffee shops, and patients don't have access to the vast varieties available.

 

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

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[OldmanMozz]

Hopefully we can go down same road here in Aussie very soon.

 

 

Mozz

[Luke Skywalker]

Absolutely mate, I'll put my hand up as an "official government suppier"...