Cheryl Angenent walks out of the Greater Ottawa Health Advocacy Centre, a newly opened marijuana shop on Somerset Street West.
Since opening on Somerset Street West last week, a medical marijuana dispensary has attracted both controversy and a flurry of interested clients.
These are people such as Cheryl Angenent, who can tell you the date of her life-altering car accident without taking a beat. It was Aug. 23, 1989. She was 18 years old.
“I had multiple skull fractures, broken neck, broken back, broken legs, and broken feet,” she recalled, as she stood outside the newly opened Greater Ottawa Health Advocacy Centre.
She had permission to possess marijuana in Oregon, but the form is now outdated and she doesn’t have a doctor, so she left the centre empty-handed.
Health Canada mandates that those needing medicinal marijuana must have a signed declaration from a doctor.
The government department announced last month that it will stop producing and distributing medicinal marijuana in April 2014. Licensed users will no longer be allowed to grow their own product and will have to obtain the drug from federally licensed growers.
Ryan Levis, owner of the Greater Ottawa Health Advocacy Centre, told the media that the shop did sell to customers not medically certified, though it has since started selling to certified clients only.
Today, clients left the shop, not with what they came for, but forms to be filled out by family doctors.
“It’s a dead end,” said Bob Jamison of the new process. “They say to go see your doctor and fill out a form. Unfortunately, not a lot of doctors are on board with medical marijuana.”
“Any medical professional that you go to will not provide you with medical marijuana permission,” said Angenent, “because they don’t consider it medicine.”
“There’s just not enough family doctors,” said Dr. Mark Ujjainwalla, an addiction medicine specialist who stopped by the shop out of curiosity. “There are lots of people coming in who bona fide need medical marijuana. In fact, there are people who have the licence, but it’s expired. But they can’t find a family doctor who will sign their forms for them.”
Jamison, who has glaucoma, said it is easier to buy on the street than to cut through the red tape. “Unfortunately,” he said, “that money I spend on the street goes to finance many, many other criminal activities.”
Angenent said she has no trouble getting marijuana on the street. “I walk through the market with my dog and my dog will pick up the smell,” she says.
She is a patient at a transitional clinic for those who do not have family doctors, so she is hoping to get permission from there.
There is no consensus as to whether the store is licensed to distribute the drug. CBC reports that Levis says he is federally licensed and the Ottawa Citizen reports that Levis has said he has applied for one, but Health Canada has not approved any yet.
Centretown News was turned away from the shop by Cameron Lodge, who identified himself as a part-owner and manager and said the shop is “complying with all federal rules.”
CTV News reports that Health Canada says it has not issued a licence for the store.
Ujjainwalla is attempting to organize a legal, medically-run, medicinal marijuana program, which he described as “a very difficult process.”