Sativex goes retail in Canada

Well it's official. Count on more US prohibitionists to be leaping onto to this gravy train as Andrea Barthwell has already done.

GW is pleased to announce that, following the receipt of regulatory approval from Health Canada, Sativex is now available by prescription through Canadian pharmacies as an adjunctive treatment for symptomatic relief of neuropathic pain in adults with multiple sclerosis (MS). In April 2005, Canada became the first country in the world to approve Sativex, an effective and safe cannabis derived prescription medicine.

The key word is prescription and define that as profitable for pharma corps - the same corporations that underwrite NGOs like Drug Free America, who tell you that the natural plant is dangerous because it's not chemically refined into "controlled doses." They're careful to make that distinction in the press release.

Sativex is a pharmaceutical product standardised in composition, formulation, and dose.

As if you can't control how much you smoke or ingest in other ways on your own and also as if Sativex can't be "abused" by taking more than the prescribed amount. It's the same compounds, no matter how you administer the medicine, the only difference is since cannabis is essentially a weed that can be grown almost anywhere, unless they keep the plant illegal, they can't make obscene amounts of money on the pharmaceutical product.

Keep that in mind the next time Drug Free America tries to sell you propaganda based on "protecting our children" when what they really mean is "protecting our profits."