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David Wilks
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Strong appose.
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December 9th, 2013 / 5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Each one of you here today has used the words “awareness”, “best practices”, “data collection”, “science”, and “reasoning”. I will bring up a term that is widely used: “medical marijuana”. I don't believe there is any awareness of it. I don't believe there are any best practices for it. I don't believe there's been any data collection whatsoever. There's been very little science done on it. There's very little reasoning as to why we're doing it, especially when we have synthetic models of Marinol, nabiximol, and dronabinol, which provide opportunities for those who are affected by some significant diseases and can
Seeing that a doctor can prescribe medical marijuana without it going through a pharmacy, I'm curious to hear your perspective, given the addiction issues you've seen, on two things. One, do you believe that marijuana can be an addictive drug; and two, from the perspective of medical marijuana, what needs to be done to ensure that that it is safely prescribed to those who fall under the prescription of a medical doctor?
I'll start with whoever wants to start. You have about one minute each.
Dr. Buckley, you seem to be quite enthralled. Go ahead.
Dr. Norman Buckley
No, I'm going to watch this one go by.
David Wilks Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Dr. Bromley.
Dr. Lisa Bromley
Of course marijuana is an addictive drug. No one can debate that. We need clinical practice guidelines on physicians using it safely. The best I know of are by Dr. Mel Kahan from Toronto, who is planning to release a paper in Canadian Family Physician to guide physicians on how best to prescribe it safely given that it will be a matter of a clinical judgment now. Generally, physicians are quite unprepared to face this as an issue.
David Wilks Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Ms. DeGroote.
Peggi DeGroote
I think it's difficult for family physicians to have so many different treatment modalities in their medical bag with the limited time they have. I know that we have some patients, especially who have MS, where it has been the miracle drug for them. They're no longer in wheelchairs and they can really get out and function, and that's wonderful.
It's tough. I'm not a doctor. The doctor's have to make that clinical decision, and we give them full authority to do that, because that's what they're good at.
David Wilks Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Dr. Buckley, I'll put you on the spot now.
Dr. Norman Buckley
I'm with Dr. Bromley. There are a variety of things that are addictive, and marijuana is probably one of them. Addiction is an interaction between a substance and a person. Some people are addicted to a variety of things, and that's a very complex story.
As far as clinical use goes, I'm entirely in agreement that we know precious little about it. We don't prescribe marijuana. We give them permission to use it with a “get out of jail free” card that we sign. This keeps them from getting busted unless they fail to adhere to certain rules about how much they can have and what they can have with it. My clinical choice is to use the commercially available preparations first.
The other challenge is that smoking itself is bad for you. I don't care what you're smoking—oregano, marijuana, or tobacco—smoking is bad for you. We also know precious little about the different strains. I have a patient who comes in with a book on different genetic strains of marijuana. He knows more about marijuana and genetics than I do about people. So it is a very difficult medical situation.
http://openparliament.ca/committees/health/41-2/10/david-wilks-2/
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