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Woman sufferer joins marijuana suit
By Hempology | May 23, 2002
By Beverly Ware, The Daily News
A Nova Scotia woman with multiple sclerosis has joined six Ontarians in suing the federal government for
access to marijuana.
Debbie Stultz-Giffin of Bridgetown, Annapolis Co., wants a court to order Ottawa to distribute more than
250 kilograms of dope grown by Health Canada in Manitoba.
She said her MS causes unrelenting muscle spasms and pain, and only marijuana provides any relief.
Stultz-Giffin has a federal medical marijuana exemption, which means she is legally allowed to smoke the drug
to help with her pain and symptoms.
“The hoops and loops that Health Canada forced me to jump through in order to be able to use my medication
are ludicrous,” she said in a news release yesterday.
The government is forcing gravely ill people “to perform like circus bears in order to satisfy their unrealistic
criteria,” she said.
Stultz-Giffin said she fought nine months to find a doctor willing to fill out the paperwork for her to
apply for an exemption to smoke marijuana.
The red tape forces people like her to get the drug on the black market at inflated prices with no quality
control, she said.
Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan has said she won’t release any of the marijuana to patients until
it has been tested in clinical trials first.
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