Sierra watched in horror as her 3-year-old boy grew violently ill in response to radiation and chemotherapy. Diagnosed with Leukemia, Landon Riddle’s doctors recommended the most aggressive treatment available. Sierra felt helpless as her son began vomiting dozens of times a day and endured constant pain, causing him to go 25 days straight without eating. While living in Utah, Sierra had few options. The liquid morphine, Ativan, Xanax and Promethexane that Landon was taking did not seem to be helping. Feeling that her child’s life was in jeopardy she began considering alternative treatments.
As a last ditch effort Sierra moved her family to Colorado Springs to utilize the state’s liberal marijuana laws. She began administering liquid Cannabidol (CBD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to her desperately ill child and was shocked by the results. “Within four weeks we could see the improvement,” Sierra told KRDO. Landon regained his energy and his appetite, and his cancer went into remission. Instead of taking over 20 pharmaceutical pills a day, Sierra now gives him 4 cannabis capsules. She has also stopped his radiation and chemotherapy.
Although Landon has been responding well to his new treatments, Sierra’s move has raised serious concerns among his doctor’s. The children’s hospital in Colorado Springs was concerned enough to get child protective services involved. According to her facebook account, Sierra will be meeting with them on Wednesday to argue for the efficacy of Landon’s medical marijuana treatments.
THC, the psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, has been shown to reduce the feeling of nausea and chronic pain. The synthesized version of THC, Marinol, has been available for medical use in the United States since the mid 80’s. Further research has shown that CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in cannabis, not only provides significant pain relief, but may also stop the growth of many kinds of cancer. Though there have been a growing number of studies illustrating the efficacy of marijuana in treating a variety of illnesses, political and social factors have stunted rigorous and unbiased research in the United States.
Public interest in medical marijuana continues to outpace litigation and legitimate research, forcing parents and patients like Sierra to put themselves on the front-lines of a tumultuous cultural war. In a recent statement to CBS Denver, Children’s Hospital Colorado noted that young patients suffering from lymphoblastic leukemia treated at their facility have a 90 percent survival rate. Riddle on the other hand, feels that their treatment was not effective for her son and wishes to continue medical marijuana therapy.
List of 26 studies showing that cannabis cures cancer, categorized by the type of cancer being treated. Note that the consistent theme between them is that marijuana shrinks tumors and selectively targets cancer cells.
Michigan republicans are fighting to get marijuana reclassified as a schedule 2 drug and distributed by pharmacies. A special committee has already passed a bill for a Senate vote. It outlines a new system for distributing medical cannabis to run parallel to the current one. This new process could not be implemented unless the federal government reclassified marijuana, but that possibility is beginning to look conceivable. Behind the push to centralize marijuana production is Prairie Plant Systems (PPS), a Canadian based horticulture company. If the bill is passed and implemented, it is possible that PPS would become the exclusive provider of pharmaceutical grade cannabis in Michigan.
Health Canada, the agency in charge of overseeing Canada’s Medical Marijuana Program, has given the first licenses to produce cannabis under the new regulations which will take effect in April 2014 to Prairie Plant Systems (PPS). PPS has been heavily criticized in the past for its production of cannabis that is contaminated with heavy metals, irradiated, and whose quality is best described as awful. PPS and its subsidiary, CanniMed Ltd., will be the sole provider of cannabis to the country’s projected 58,000 Medical Marijuana Patients in 2014. As of April 2104, individuals will no longer be permitted to grow either for themselves or for other patients, and will be forced to obtain their medicine by mail-order from state approved lessees, of which PPS and CanniMed Ltd are the only two at this time.
Brent Zettl is the CEO of PPS, which has provided medical cannabis to Health Canada for the past 13 years. In a recent press release, Zettl said, ”Patient safety is our primary focus, which means that patients and their healthcare professionals can trust our consistent and reliable product every time. We have a quality control process with 281 points of control, ensuring that there is no variability, giving patient’s confidence in dose consistency.” These are nice words, but PPS’s track record tells a very different tale.
Prairie Plant Systems was founded in 1988 and is a privately-held plant biotechnology company that develops “Prairie hardy fruit trees and seed potatoes” as well as plant-based pharmaceuticals. In 2001, it signed a $5.7 million cultivation contract with the Canadian government, the first and only such contract ever signed between the government and a private company with the sole purpose of cultivating cannabis for distribution to the public. This is where things begin to get a bit shady.
Instead of growing outdoors or in the vastness of the Canadian landscape, PPS started a joint venture with the Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting Company to cultivate cannabis in a Flin Flon, Manitoba mine over a thousand feet below the ground. It doesn’t take an expert to recognize the potential hazards to health that growing a plant for consumption in an old mine might present.
After securing the contract with the government and the mining company, PPS set to work on growing cannabis. Despite the company’s claim that it was growing top-quality cannabis that had a THC content of at least 10%, Health Canada repeatedly delayed the distribution of the finished product.
When that finished product began arriving at patients’ doors, the news got worse for PPS. Patients were complaining that the cannabis was “weak” and “disgusting,” and that the finished product was little more than a ground-up mix of buds, leaves, and stems.
Two years later, Canadians for Safe Access (CSA) acquired samples of PPS’s cannabis and started testing. The findings were shocking. The group published an open letter which detailed their findings. In the letter, CSA states that, ”upon initial physical examination, it became apparent that claims by PPS and Health Canada that the PPS cannabis was 10% THC seemed overly optimistic.” “The product was of very fine grind with visible stalk and stems peppered throughout and very little detectable trichome development. When put under flame, it produced a dark smoke with an unpleasant taste and odor. The cannabis burned very poorly and left a thick black residual ash, immediately suggesting inadequate nutrient flushing. This was later confirmed by an examination of tests conducted by Norwest labs for PPS, which show unusually high levels of phosphorous, calcium, and magnesium all of which are ‘flowering’ fertilizers used at the end of growth cycle, and are typically to blame for the poor combustion and acrid taste of inferior quality black-market cannabis.”
Some patients refused to accept the low quality, with 30% of those who ordered the cannabis between 2003 and 2004 physically returning the product to Health Canada. The tests also showed that the cannabis had THC levels of only 3%-5%, well below the company’s claims of 10%.
Marijuana Mining
This wasn’t the worst of PPS’s problems. PPS was about to find out why growing cannabis in an old Zinc and Copper mine might not be the ideal spot to set up shop. ”As a result of over 80 years of mining and smelting,” the CSA wrote, “a number of official Conservation Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada reports suggest that Flin Flon and the surrounding region is one of the most environmentally contaminated areas in North America.”
Furthermore, according to a MiningWatch Canada report released in 2001, “the sheer size of the contaminated area in Flin Flon makes it impossible to remediate. In particular, there is a large volume of tailings that blow in the wind, and the metal content (copper, cadmium and lead) makes it difficult for vegetation to establish. Community concerns have historically not been adequately addressed, and much information, including that collected by Health Canada (e. g., toxic metal levels in blueberries) has not been made available to the residents of Flin Flon…”
Canadians for Safe Access had the PPS marijuana tested for heavy metals by a lab certified by the EPA and CAEAL certified in 2003. The results of the tests showed that the marijuana had high levels of both lead and arsenic.
CSA then ordered copies of every heavy metal test conducted by PPS and Health Canada, and while these test results showed lower levels of lead and arsenic, they revealed elevated levels of manganese and phosphorous in the PPS marijuana which could be a health concern when inhaled into the lungs.
When CSA confronted Health Canada with their findings, Health Canada called the tests, “totally unsatisfactory.” One Health Canada spokesperson, Jirina Vlk, said the government’s tests of the PPS marijuana showed similar levels of heavy metal content to that of Canadian tobacco, and that these levels were “well within allowable limits.” When she was pressed to reveal what those levels were, she admitted that there are currently no legal limits to heavy metal content in either cannabis or tobacco in Canada.
Other Impurities and Gamma Radiation
If a mixture of stems, leaves, buds, arsenic, lead, phosphorous, and manganese wasn’t bad enough, the same tests that showed high levels of heavy metals in PPS marijuana showed high levels of biological impurities prior to gamma radiation. Aerobic bacteria was found in concentrations more than 1000 times than that of organic cannabis which had undergone the same tests. The tests also showed extremely high levels of molds, including penicillium and aspergillus, which the CSA stated, “HIV/AIDS, Hep-C, and cancer sufferers may be particularly vulnerable to.”
The solution that PPS came up with to kill all the hazardous bacteria was to nuke it with gamma radiation. Health Canada’s website, “The product has been irradiated by gamma irradiation to reduce to undetectable levels, potentially harmful bacteria and microbial load which may cause spoilage of product. The lowest dose required is utilized for the irradiation process (i.e. 10 kilogray – standard level for herbs and spices), ensuring that the chemical characteristics of the marihuana product are not altered.” CSA noted that the effects of smoking gamma radiation treated cannabis have never been studied or documented, and that relying on using gamma radiation to decontaminate the product shows a lack of care or reliability in the production, processing, and/or handling process. CSA further noted that One of the bi-products of gamma irradiation is the production of Unique Radiolytic Products, which are a new class of chemicals resulting from irradiations that are not otherwise found in nature. Of significance in the gamma irradiation of whole plant cannabis is the potential production of cyclobutanones, which are toxic, carcinogenic chemicals that form when fats are subjected to gamma irradiation, and which have been directly linked to the development of colon cancer in rats. In addition, gamma irradiation has been shown to destroy terpenes like myrcene and linalool, which have known therapeutic properties and are found in high concentrations in some strains of whole-plant cannabis.”
Will PPS Marijuana be the Only Marijuana available to Patients?
Currently, Prairie Plant Systems and its subsidiary CanniMed are the sole companies licensed to provide medical marijuana to Canadian patients when the new ordinance takes effect in 2014.
Republican Senator Roger Kahn of Saginaw Township is leading the charge to make marijuana available at pharmacies across Michigan. The bill, which was approved last week by a Senate Committee, aims to classify marijuana as a schedule 2 drug. The change would move marijuana’s status from the ranks of heroin and LSD to that of other potentially harmful but medically beneficial substances such as cocaine and morphine.
The new system would not replace the existing law but would be run parallel to it. Doctors would be permitted to issue enhanced marijuana cards which would allow patients access to pharmaceutical grade marijuana. A patient would be required to surrender any previously issued marijuana cards under the current system. They could not have been convicted of any previous drug related offenses and would have to be at least 18 years old.
If passed, Michigan would be the first state to attempt to reschedule marijuana. While the Federal government has actively turned a blind eye towards Colorado and Washington’s legalization measures it is unclear how they would respond to a reclassification effort. It is also difficult to predict how pharmacies would react to such new and potentially contentious laws.
Critics of the bill are concerned that the new system will undermine the current program which allows registered caregivers across the state grow marijuana for over 120,000 patients throughout Michigan.
At the heart of this unprecedented move is a controversial Canadian agricultural company. Prairie Plant Systems Inc. has been the Canadian government’s sole marijuana provider for the last 13 years. They have been criticized for producing a low grade and heavily contaminated product. They are currently lobbying for Michigan to reschedule marijuana in hopes of expanding their market.
Proponents of the Bill argue that a centralized growing operation would provide a more consistent and easily regulated product. The bill appears to have broad republican support and could potentially make its way to Gov. Snyder’s desk with a simple Senate majority.
Michigan patients using medical marijuana could obtain the drug from a pharmacy after a proposal was passed today by the Senate. Federal approval, along with a rescheduling of cannabis would be needed to implement the proposal, however.
The Republican-led Senate approved the measure today, saying that the Pharmaceutical Cannabis would run along side, but not replace, the current patient-caregiver system.
Canada had a similar system for almost a decade, but in April 2014, Patients will only be able to get medical marijuana from Prairie Plant Systems, currently the only company licensed to grow cannabis for patients.
Senate Bill 660, though approved by the Michigan Senate, is completely dependent on the Federal Government rescheduling cannabis to Schedule II.
Proponents of the Bill, including several doctors, believe that by dispensing cannabis through pharmacies, patients will have access to a consistent product free of mold, pesticide, and other impurities.
the Michigan Department of Community Health would be tasked with licensing, registering and inspecting specialized marijuana manufacturing facilities. Those wishing to distribute would have to obtain a license from the Michigan Board of Pharmacy, as already required for other controlled substances.
The story gets interesting when you see how intimately involved Prairie Plant Systems is with the passage of this bill.
Chuck Perricone, the former Michigan Speaker of the House, is now working for Prairie Plant Systems Inc. He testified in support of the Bill, which isn’t surprising when you see that PPS already owns an underground facility in the Upper Peninsula.
Hasn’t PPS learned that growing cannabis in a mine presents numerous health concerns? Perricone feigns humility when he states that the medical marijuana provided by PPS to Michigan Patients, “will be, we believe, a small segment of the market, but it will be a choice. It will be an option.”
If we have learned anything from Canada, PPS “Medical” Marijuana could soon become the only option for Michigan Patients.
Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, spoke out against the bill and questioned why the Senate would pass a bill benefiting a Canadian company when “we’re not doing squat” to improve current Michigan law.
Additionally, many patients testified on the floor that no deaths have come as a result of consuming home grown cannabis. They also fear the same fate as Canadian patients who will soon have to give up their cards, their ability to grow their own cannabis, and must rely on a product being produced underground in mines.
