Dave Thistlewaite says medical marijuana gave him his life back.
For six years it has allowed him to live more comfortably than the traditional painkillers he used to take. This year, for the first time, he was denied renewal of his marijuana prescription and has to buy his cannabis illegally.
"I buy it wherever I can get it on the street, whenever I can afford it," he said from his home in Mont Nebo, west of Shellbrook.
In 2003, Thistlewaite's spine was severely damaged in a car crash. He spent eight weeks in a hospital almost completely unable to move. He regained some control of his limbs after an extensive surgery that replaced two of his vertebrae with metal plates and inserted two metal wires, which he describes as larger versions of a bike chain, to hold his head in place.
Now able to walk with some difficulty, Thistlewaite is still wracked with muscle spasms.
He has Babinski reflex, meaning a slight touch can cause him to lose control and end up on the ground, his muscles twitching.
"I rarely go out into a crowded area because if someone brushes up against me the wrong way and I'm not expecting it, I'm lying on the floor pretty quick because my left side curls into the fetal position," he said.
In 2009, Thistlewaite was referred to a Saskatoon pain specialist who prescribed him marijuana. He was amazed at how well it controlled his pain and muscle spasms. At the time he was on a heavy regimen of Baclofen, a powerful muscle relaxant that left him unable to do much of anything.
"I'd been on Celebrex, Baclofen, Tylenol 3s, morphine - (marijuana) got me off of all of it," he said.
The specialist renewed his prescription yearly, according to Thistlewaite. In April of this year, she changed her mind. "She didn't want to be just known as a pot doctor," Thistlewaite said.
Since then he has contacted every family doctor taking patients in the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region and all of them turned him down once they found out he wants a marijuana prescription, he said.
Stories such as Thistlewaite's have become common in the province, according to Mark Hauk, proprietor of the Saskatchewan Compassion Club. The club's mandate is to help people attain prescriptions and in some cases provide them with their marijuana. Hauk said he gets eight to 10 calls a day from people who have been unable to get prescriptions from Saskatchewan doctors.
In 2013, Health Canada changed medical marijuana regulations. Previously Health Canada did the prescribing. Now, local doctors do it.
The provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons passed a bylaw in November 2013 laying out the rules under which doctors could prescribe marijuana. According to Hauk, the bylaw discourages doctors from doing so.
"The College of Physicians and Surgeons believes that there have not been sufficient scientific or clinical assessments to provide a body of evidence as to the efficacy and safety of marijuana for medical purposes," the bylaw reads.
College lawyer Bryan Salte said the bylaw does instruct doctors when to prescribe marijuana. "There's nothing that describes whether it is or isn't appropriate for chronic pain, or (multiple sclerosis), or any of the other potential reasons people may choose to prescribe marijuana," he said.
Any doctor writing such a prescription has to submit documentation to the college once a year, or every six months if more than 20 prescriptions are written. "It's really just to make sure there's appropriate medical judgment used in the decisions to prescribe. It's really not any different whether you're prescribing opiates, or prescribing marijuana, or dealing with any other appropriate medical treatment," Salte said.
Thistlewaite said several people recommended he go through Hauk. He also said he went into an emergency room in Prince Albert during a particularly bad episode and was told by a doctor there to go buy marijuana on the street.
None of the doctors he spoke with questioned marijuana as a treatment, but none of them wanted to write the prescription, he said.
"There are some doctors who quite clearly don't want anything to do with it, and there's others who give me the impression it's the College of Physicians and Surgeons preventing them," he said.
THE MMPR and HC's system has failed miserably.
For six years it has allowed him to live more comfortably than the traditional painkillers he used to take. This year, for the first time, he was denied renewal of his marijuana prescription and has to buy his cannabis illegally.
"I buy it wherever I can get it on the street, whenever I can afford it," he said from his home in Mont Nebo, west of Shellbrook.
In 2003, Thistlewaite's spine was severely damaged in a car crash. He spent eight weeks in a hospital almost completely unable to move. He regained some control of his limbs after an extensive surgery that replaced two of his vertebrae with metal plates and inserted two metal wires, which he describes as larger versions of a bike chain, to hold his head in place.
Now able to walk with some difficulty, Thistlewaite is still wracked with muscle spasms.
He has Babinski reflex, meaning a slight touch can cause him to lose control and end up on the ground, his muscles twitching.
"I rarely go out into a crowded area because if someone brushes up against me the wrong way and I'm not expecting it, I'm lying on the floor pretty quick because my left side curls into the fetal position," he said.
In 2009, Thistlewaite was referred to a Saskatoon pain specialist who prescribed him marijuana. He was amazed at how well it controlled his pain and muscle spasms. At the time he was on a heavy regimen of Baclofen, a powerful muscle relaxant that left him unable to do much of anything.
"I'd been on Celebrex, Baclofen, Tylenol 3s, morphine - (marijuana) got me off of all of it," he said.
The specialist renewed his prescription yearly, according to Thistlewaite. In April of this year, she changed her mind. "She didn't want to be just known as a pot doctor," Thistlewaite said.
Since then he has contacted every family doctor taking patients in the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region and all of them turned him down once they found out he wants a marijuana prescription, he said.
Stories such as Thistlewaite's have become common in the province, according to Mark Hauk, proprietor of the Saskatchewan Compassion Club. The club's mandate is to help people attain prescriptions and in some cases provide them with their marijuana. Hauk said he gets eight to 10 calls a day from people who have been unable to get prescriptions from Saskatchewan doctors.
In 2013, Health Canada changed medical marijuana regulations. Previously Health Canada did the prescribing. Now, local doctors do it.
The provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons passed a bylaw in November 2013 laying out the rules under which doctors could prescribe marijuana. According to Hauk, the bylaw discourages doctors from doing so.
"The College of Physicians and Surgeons believes that there have not been sufficient scientific or clinical assessments to provide a body of evidence as to the efficacy and safety of marijuana for medical purposes," the bylaw reads.
College lawyer Bryan Salte said the bylaw does instruct doctors when to prescribe marijuana. "There's nothing that describes whether it is or isn't appropriate for chronic pain, or (multiple sclerosis), or any of the other potential reasons people may choose to prescribe marijuana," he said.
Any doctor writing such a prescription has to submit documentation to the college once a year, or every six months if more than 20 prescriptions are written. "It's really just to make sure there's appropriate medical judgment used in the decisions to prescribe. It's really not any different whether you're prescribing opiates, or prescribing marijuana, or dealing with any other appropriate medical treatment," Salte said.
Thistlewaite said several people recommended he go through Hauk. He also said he went into an emergency room in Prince Albert during a particularly bad episode and was told by a doctor there to go buy marijuana on the street.
None of the doctors he spoke with questioned marijuana as a treatment, but none of them wanted to write the prescription, he said.
"There are some doctors who quite clearly don't want anything to do with it, and there's others who give me the impression it's the College of Physicians and Surgeons preventing them," he said.
THE MMPR and HC's system has failed miserably.
