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A few bureaucratic hurdles are all that remain between Jean Charles Pariseau and the medicine his doctors believe is saving his life. Pariseau, who suffers from AIDS and its associated "wasting syndrome," had tried more than a dozen prescription drugs to fight nausea and increase his appetite, but none of them had worked. He weighed just eighty-two pounds and was told he had three months to live when, on a friend's advice, he began to smoke marijuana. Today Pariseau weighs in at over one hundred pounds, and his life expectancy has been extended to three years. His doctor, Don Kirby, is convinced that marijuana made all the difference. So when Pariseau was arrested in October and charged with marijuana possession, Dr. Kirby set out to find a way to get Pariseau's medicine restored to him. Now, with the help of a former head of Health Canada's Special Access Program and legal assistance from the Canadian Foundation on Drug Policy, he appears to have succeeded. Health Canada's Emergency Drug Release Program allows doctors to apply for permission to prescribe unauthorized medicines as life-saving measures on a case-by-case basis. Such applications are common, and are usually approved within 24-72 hours when there is evidence to indicate a drug's usefulness. In Pariseau's case, Dr. Kirby's initial application was rejected on the basis of two technicalities, both of which are expected to be remedied quickly, and neither of which is related to a lack of evidence of medical necessity. "It would be approved, if the changes are made," said Dann Nichols, who oversees the regulation of all drugs and medical devices in Canada. "There is no problem, basically, with marijuana as medicine." NOTE: Also in Canada this week, prosecutors indicated that they would appeal last week's decision by an Ottawa court declaring the prohibition of medicinal marijuana unconstitutional in the case of Terry Parker, an epileptic. <A few bureaucratic hurdles are all that remain between Jean Charles Pariseau and the medicine his doctors believe is saving his life. Pariseau, who suffers from AIDS and its associated "wasting syndrome," had tried more than a dozen prescription drugs to fight nausea and increase his appetite, but none of them had worked. He weighed just eighty-two pounds and was told he had three months to live when, on a friend's advice, he began to smoke marijuana. Today Pariseau weighs in at over one hundred pounds, and his life expectancy has been extended to three years. His doctor, Don Kirby, is convinced that marijuana made all the difference. So when Pariseau was arrested in October and charged with marijuana possession, Dr. Kirby set out to find a way to get Pariseau's medicine restored to him. Now, with the help of a former head of Health Canada's Special Access Program and legal assistance from the Canadian Foundation on Drug Policy, he appears to have succeeded. Health Canada's Emergency Drug Release Program allows doctors to apply for permission to prescribe unauthorized medicines as life-saving measures on a case-by-case basis. Such applications are common, and are usually approved within 24-72 hours when there is evidence to indicate a drug's usefulness. In Pariseau's case, Dr. Kirby's initial application was rejected on the basis of two technicalities, both of which are expected to be remedied quickly, and neither of which is related to a lack of evidence of medical necessity. "It would be approved, if the changes are made," said Dann Nichols, who oversees the regulation of all drugs and medical devices in Canada. "There is no problem, basically, with marijuana as medicine." NOTE: Also in Canada this week, prosecutors indicated that they would appeal last week's decision by an Ottawa court declaring the prohibition of medicinal marijuana unconstitutional in the case of Terry Parker, an epileptic. <
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