Where can I find a doctor willing to sign forms in Saskatchewan?

[Ethan Erkiletian]

It is my understanding that any specialist (related to your illness or injury) may sign if you have something like the following.

spinal cord injury
spinal cord disease
cancer
AIDS/HIV infection
a severe form of arthritis
multiple sclerosis
epilepsy.

Depending on what you have and whether or not you qualify as a "category 2" patient, any specialist may sign your form so long as the specialist is related to your particular illness.  If you were referred to Dr. Wine (A neurologist), than any neurologist may sign your forms.  There are five neurologists alone in Saskatoon according to a yellow pages search.

If you're 12 months away from death, you need the signature of your MD and two other medical specialists so far as I understand it.  That's category one I think.

So bottom line is that if you have an injury or illness which is debilitating, you need the signature of a specialist in order to get your application underway.  Depending on what kind of illness or injury you have, there are any number of doctors who are "qualified" to sign your forms for you.  The trick is finding one who will even consider it and weigh the idea against being drilled by the college of physicians and surgeons about their actions here in good ol' Saskatchewan.

Cheers

[phattie420]

Huh well maybe I misunderstood the doc, but I guess thats goods news anyways.

I would still like to see a list of known cannabis friendly specialist's posted for would-be/could-be med patents so I am gonna start the topic. I think it would also be nice to see any possible comments/reviews on the doctors on this said list.

Thanx for the 411

[Ethan Erkiletian]

No problemo.  As for finding a "list" of medpot friendly doctors, I really do hope that is something that can be developed in Saskatchewan.  Anything I can do to help...for now, all I know about is how to find the names of doctors...perhaps if I had time to sit down and call their offices.

Cheers

[moe.brondum]

My understanding of the current regulations mirrors Ethan's.

Any Doctor is allowed to sign, depending on the circumstances.

Consult Health Canada's regulations to make sure your condition applies and what Doctor/Specialist needs to sign.

Most are unaware of the regulations and you can hardly fault the doctors for that. there are not many medpot users in the province and many of them went out of province for signatures. In addition, the physicians association has denounced the practice of signing because the rules place the burden of liability on the Doctor. Most have also had life-long doses of propaganda from government and drug companies.

Plus, Doctors are part of a competing industry. It isn't in the interest of physicians to advocate self diagnosis and treatment.

There is a general misunderstanding about the access rules by both caregivers and patients.

[Sherry Ullrich]

To make a long story longer, I was severely epileptic most of my youth. Docs said if I didn't outgrow it by the time I was  18, I'd have it for life. I accepted my fate and was on various medications over the years to control my grande mal seizures. Phenobarb, Depokane, Dilantin, Tegretol. They all interfered with my quality of life, made me feel like a zombie and controlled my seizures about 65% of the time. I was pulled out of high school in grade 10 due to my seizures and forced to upgrade my education elsewhere. I started smoking herb daily in the early 90's on the advice of a friend when my fears of stepping onto my stage to perform got out of control. I was preoccupied with the thought that I could have a seizure on stage right in front of my audience and that was a fate worse than death to me back then. I'm not sure exactly when it was that I realized this but I used to have an aura prior to a bad seizure. A warning that something bad was going to happen. I could then lay down or call someone to help. I started noticing that this aura was (POOF) gone, I wasn't feeling as dopey as I used to. Within a cpl years I was virtually seizure free. After doing research on marijuana and epilepsy, I was shocked to find that many other people had cured or all but cured their epilepsy with mj. Those that didn't were at least reporting a drastic reduction in their seizures or the severity of them. I was excited and decided to start slowly taking myself off of my medications. I kept my last pill bottle as a reminder. 1998 was the last refill of Tegretol for me. I weaned myself from 6 pills 200 mg each a day down to nothing over the course of 2 years. I told my doctor about it and she appeared to be amused at best. But didn't argue with me. Shes known me all my life practically and knew that I was serious about my seizures going away. She wasn't prescribing medication to me anymore so she had no choice but to at least listen to what I was doing. There is no other explanation for this. Another Doc I talked to said epileptics usually deal with seizures all their life. The medications used to control them destroy your liver over time. Which was something the docs didn't concern themselves with when I was a kid because in their opinion..the benefits outweighed the risks to my young liver. Well that liver has seen a few decades come and go now and no thanks....never again, I will smoke herb til I die. I know it is what controls my seizures now 100% I would naturally be very interested in obtaining a med pot certificate as I have all the medical records and neurologists reports over the years to back me up. However.... I would certainly not enjoy being scrutinized closely or hassled in any way because of it. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to what certificate holders have had to endure to possess such a rare gem. I am interested in pursuing this further, but want to educate myself fully first. Even with all my epilepsy history... I would have to seek a doctor for approval in Alta or somewhere else? PM me or reply to me here. Thanks! Was great meeting a lot of you at Marcs' Stoon rally last week.