Saturday, June 16, 2007

Forget Your Doctor, Just ask Tony

I thought this government was intent on being small and less intrusive in people's lives.

This story seems to run counter to that idea.

I suppose it is reasonable that the government should have safeguards in place, in an effort to catch any abuse of the system. Challenging Doctor's on their decisions seems to cross the line though.

14 comments:

Red Tory said...

Bit of a double-standard, isn't it? Their attitude towards marijuana is totally ridiculous.

Note the suggestion at the end of the article that next year they're going to force everyone to go through pharmacies to obtain their medicinal dope. And what will their source be? The government's facility in Flin Flon? (The stuff is supposed to be crap from what I've heard.)

All this is completely needless interference by the government. I thought Conservatives hated that sort of thing. I certainly do.

Karen said...

I thought Conservatives hated that sort of thing.

Precisely. Trudeau stayed out of bedrooms and the con's have invaded our medicine cabinets. Strange times indeed.

Red Tory said...

When you consider all of the side-effects of various pharmaceuticals (especially when they interact) and the negative outcomes that can result from that, it seems pretty silly for Health Canada to be butting in on the dosage of marijuana that should be prescribed. There’s no justification for it whatsoever other than the fact that they have an aversion to it because they consider it an illegal narcotic.

I wonder if Steve has ever smoked up? Whattaya think? I’m guessing he hasn’t ever tried it in his life. Not such an “ordinary guy” after all...

Karen said...

Not a chance RT. He went to my High School remember? I hung out with the group who were familiar with such things, :), and though he's a couple of years younger, he definitely was not part of that group, nor planning to be in the future. I doubt he even tried a cigarette.

They call Dion a nerd? Harper back then personified the term.

I do not understand why we just don't decriminalise the stuff. Give gangs one less lever and give people who need it for medical reasons one less hassle.

You know, it's these little things that they are changing, behind the scenes, that concern me. I say that because it would suggest there is a hell of lot of dismantling and tampering with larger issues, that we are not yet aware of.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of "medication", you don't have to know the first thing about medicine and/or pharmaceuticals to notice that this Conservative government needs to have its' dosage adjusted/corrected, and soon as, they have become a danger to society.

Karen said...

lol Sassy.

Red Canuck said...

This is pretty shameless stuff. Governmental agencies have no business dictating doses of medications to individual patients. They are welcome to issue guidelines for prescribing physicians, but the ultimate decision on dosing etc must be left in the hands of the doctors.

There are many people in the community who are on high doses of opioids for chronic pain (doses that would be fatal/near fatal for opioid-naive patients). So long as the meds are prescribed by qualified and competent docs and proper medical monitoring is in place, there shouldn't be a problem.

Karen said...

Agreed Red Canuck. I see this as a real issue.

Perhaps it will get more play as time goes on and more are affected.

Scotian said...

I was preparing to shift from the high end prescribed pain meds I have been taking for over a decade now to medical marijuana because it works almost as well with far less serious side effects than what I currently take. I hesitated though when I saw that the government may fall and the CPC become the next government because I did not trust them to follow through on this, or worse to target those that have applied for such medical permission. I did not want to risk that exposure, and I also feared that they would rewrite the rules so as to make it in the end effectively useless/worthless. This article demonstrates that my concerns were not without some foundation on this topic.

I have been using grass to supplement the meds I take now, that way I do not have to increase the prescribed drug's dose beyond what I can tolerate and still retain reasonable functioning capacity (my doctors are well aware of this btw, I have always kept them in the loop on this, and my GP would be fine with having me switch to grass alone if it were not for the actions of the CPC government with this file since they came to power, she doesn’t trust them on this any more than I do). Ironically enough this limit would not have bothered me as I do not use that much in a given day and suspect even taken totally off the current pain meds that I wouldn't use that much each day. What is a problem with it is that when political ideology trumps medical science and judgment as it clearly is doing here (no way the bureaucrats did this without instructions from their political masters) it never works to the benefit of the patients.

This is exactly the sort of nonsense I have feared from this CPC government and not limited to this one area/issue either. Much like Bushco the CPC seems intent on reshaping all government tools to act as levers to advance the CPC agenda regardless of whether it was appropriate/traditional for those tools to be non-partisan in nature. We saw this with the justice system in America along with the department of the Interior and many other sectors of the government. Given how closely the CPC leadership follows the path laid out by their GOP instructors and brethren and what we have seen to date we all have very good reasons to fear a repeat by Harper of the partisanization of government to be subordinate to the interests of the CPC instead of for all Canadians, exactly as he GOP have clearly done in America.

Karen said...

Scotian, I'm sorry you have to contend with that kind of pain on a daily basis.

I am glad, though not surprised, that you were prescient enough not to go forward.

The intrusion is beyond belief to me. I'm not in your situation, but I thought about it while writing the post. Do I want the government tracking me like this, judging me and my doctor in this way?

To be honest, I'm not sure how closely we are tracked, but this seemed above and beyond.

You're intuition was right my friend. The key is, is the Lib's get in, we must insist that it stop.

Anonymous said...

Why doesn't Harper have a doctor as Minister of Health? Oh, they don't have a doctor in the caucus? Just farmers?

Karen said...

anon, I don't think they do have a doctor in caucus. I know the Lib's do, because Grewal fainted last week and the Lib caucus meeting was burst into, looking for one.

Patry, I think came to the rescue, but I think the Lib's have 3. The NDP I think do have a doctor as well.

Scotian said...

knb:

The pain issues are one of the reasons why my posting history can be a bit fragmented. Some days I simply hurt too much to expend the energy, other days I am recovering from high end pain medicating, and some days I simply want to spend my good time doing more than simply sitting at the computer. It is also why I am reluctant to allow myself to write when I am really upset over something because it will drain me more than I can afford. I am finally starting to recover from the near non-stop fury I have been feeling since the Harper Afghanistan detainees fiasco, followed by the "How to make dysfunctional Parliamentary Committees" manual, and basically the Atlantic Accord betrayal, which given I am a Bluenoser born and bred ht particularly close to home for me. It never ceases to amaze me how CPCers who defend Alberta's keeping its oil revenues have at the same time the belief that it is unfair for NS and NFLD to have the exact same deal that Alberta had to develop that oil revenue resource.

In any event, pain is something that I have long since come to terms living with, if not living comfortably with *Grin* to the point that if I ever woke up without any I would be convinced I was dead. Unfortunately pain is tiring and that is why I can only do limited bursts of things before being forced to recuperate, which is one of the main reasons I can no longer work. Thanks though for your consideration and kind words over my situation, and I agree, under the Libs this sort of thing must be dealt with properly. Seeing as though they were the ones bringing in medical marijuana in the first place I am reasonably confident that the Libs won't screw this up like the CPC did.

Karen said...

Scotian, you cannot imagine my admiration for you.

I have started to blog again, though I am tentative, so I choose fairly safe subjects.

I like you, was so angry, no I was beyond anger, my poor partner. I needed to vent, but was reluctant to do so here. This place can bring solace, in that you vent, but it brings inane comments too. I could not deal with that.

These past two years have been my nightmare. That would be due to Harper for the most part, but not soley.