By: Jenna Valleriani & Caroline MacCallum, September 8, 2018 for CBC News
Physicians in Canada are prescribing cannabis. They have been doing so for years, and will likely continue to do so after recreational cannabis is legalized this fall. But the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) says that doctors in Canada want to see the phasing out of the medical cannabis access program once pot is legalized. And no doubt, some do…
The CMA’s position on cannabis for medical purposes is that there is “insufficient evidence on risks and benefits, the proper dosage and potential interactions with other medication.” However, this view ignores thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles and studies that provide evidence of the efficacy of cannabis use for some medical conditions — chronic pain, as one example. While we do not deny that more clinical studies are needed, surely the publishing of over 10,000 peer reviewed articles signals that the use of cannabis in medical treatment is not some fringe endeavor.
There are numerous risks in eliminating a medical stream of cannabis access — risks that include things like the loss of guidance around dosing and administration, contraindications to cannabis use, screening for dependency risk and potential drug interactions. Essentially, it ignores the realities physicians are facing on the ground.
But there’s one critical topic that has been left completely out of consideration regarding the issue of narrowing cannabis access to just the recreational stream: youth under the legal age of access…
See full article on CBC