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While Health Canada threatens to shut down a Saskatoon dispensary, a woman named Bobby with myopic who suffers from extreme pain prays the shop stays open.
“I have a rare eye condition and with it comes a lot of pain and over the years they’re tried all kinds of painkillers to steroids and they don’t work and I’m highly allergic to them,” Bobby said. “I was in pain every day. It hurt to blink so finding someone that would help me find a prescription we had no idea what to do or where to go.”
Taking the advice from her optometrist, Bobby was turned to the idea of taking medical marijuana to cure her pain.
“This was a last resort method that was suggested and it actually works.”
“This was a last resort method that was suggested and it actually works.” – Bobby
Getting her medicine hasn’t been the easiest. Bobby tells CKOM News she’s had a medical marijuana prescription for about two years, but ever since the Saskatoon Compassion Club opened, getting her hands on the right medicine has never been easier.
But she couldn’t find a doctor in Saskatchewan to prescribe medical cannabis. So she was forced to reach out to a doctor in Ontario who could write her a prescription. From there she registered with a licensed producer where she said she had to wait up to seven days from the moment she ordered her medicine, to the time it arrived at her doorstep. Bobby said the price attached to the delivery was hard to swallow.
“When I was filling a prescription it was $800 per month to get medicine so that was my entire income,” she said, adding it took about a year before she nailed down the specific strain of cannabis she needed to cure her pain, something she had to by trial-and-error.
Then the Saskatchewan Compassion Club opened, and Bobby’s access to the right medicine has improved drastically.
“The compassion club has the strains that I need, they also have oils, topicals, things I can use it is very helpful and I can talk to them directly,” she said.
What’s helped her get to this point, is the face-to-face interaction with Mark Hauk, founder of the Saskatchewan Compassion Club. Rather than trading emails and phone calls with licensed producers under Health Canada’s marijuana program, having someone to consult with has helped Bobby get the right medicine for her pain.
“It’s not like talking to someone that’s been there and completely understands what it’s like to be sick and deals with sick people all the time. Seeing them face-to-face is way better. You’re humanized. You don’t get that through Health Canada, with them it’s ‘these are the products this is what you can order.’”
Last week dispensaries across Canada received threatening letters from Health Canada giving dispensary owners 30 days to close up shop or else they would face $5 million fine and jail time. Hauk said this week he wasn’t going to stop operating his business.
Hauk is currently waiting for a decision from city council as to whether or not they will issue him a special business licence so he can operate legally in Saskatoon.
The RCMP were unable to provide comments on whether or not they had jurisdiction over the Saskatoon Police Service to come into the city and close the dispensary. Saskatoon police said they’re unaware of the letter from Health Canada and the RCMP.
