[420 Girl]

Correctional Service of Canada scrambled to craft a no-pot rule for prisoners and parolees after it was hit with two surprise bills for medicinal marijuana.

Documents obtained by Sun Media under Access to Information show CSC officials sought legal clarification on its pot policy after receiving two invoices from Health Canada for "payment of dried marijuana."

The heavily censored documents from March 2005 suggest the recipient of the medicinal weed was on parole at a halfway house, but CSC insists it does not pay for -- or provide -- dried cannabis to any offenders.

"Given practical concerns, medicinal marijuana in its smoking format has not been approved for any federal inmate," said CSC spokeswoman Christelle Chartrand. "All accepted medical treatments and accommodation alternatives will be explored and provided to inmates with exemptions for medicinal marijuana granted by Health Canada."

Bob Browne, Ontario's regional administrator of health services, first raised questions about the policy in a March 8, 2005 e-mail, after he received the invoices from Health Canada. His query triggered a chain of exchanges that made its way through CSC's executive and legal services seeking policy clarification on the use of pot.

Most of the correspondence released through Access to Information has been blacked out, citing personal information, client-solicitor privilege or the internal decision-making process of government.

When reached by phone late yesterday, Browne said the offender in question was at a community residential facility at the time, where operations are contracted out by CSC to the community and offenders have access to their own physicians.

NO PAY BACK

To the best of his recollection, Health Canada was never reimbursed for the offender's weed.

Chartrand said CSC provides and pays for essential health services and prescriptions. Sick inmates with exemptions from Health Canada to smoke pot are considered for alternative treatments, including synthetic marijuana, in cases of terminal illness or severe nausea caused by cancer therapy.

A relatively small number of offenders meet the requirements at any given time, she said.

But Jeet-Kei Leung, spokesman for the B.C. Compassion Club, said inmates behind bars or on parole should have the same access to medicinal marijuana as any other Canadian on the street. He said it could provide some calm and well-being to incarcerated patients locked in a tense and aggression-filled environment.

'UNFAIR'

"I think you are denying people who are ill access to something that society recognizes is valuable and that the medical community recognizes as valuable," he said. "To do that is unfair, unjust and causing unnecessary suffering in my opinion."

Leung said CSC could find ways to address security concerns by accommodating inmates with prescribed pot while ensuring the marijuana doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

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