FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 14, 2003 Medical Marijuana to be in Dutch Pharmacies March 17 Doctors Can Prescribe Immediately; Government Preparing to License Growers WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Under a groundbreaking new law effective March 17, physicians in the Netherlands will be able to prescribe medical marijuana and pharmacies will dispense it to patients as they do other prescription medications. This will make the Netherlands the first country to treat marijuana in the same manner it treats other prescription drugs. In order to establish a stable, quality-controlled supply of the medicine, the Dutch government will shortly begin contracting with medical marijuana growers, who will be required to meet specific standards covering product quality, as well as security rules designed to prevent diversion into the illegal market. Spokesman Bas Kuik of the Dutch government's Office of Medicinal Cannabis said that he expects the first contract to be signed "somewhere near the end of March," with the first crop reaching pharmacies in September. Once this system is in place, pharmacies will be required to dispense only medical marijuana from these government-licensed providers. Until then, they will be permitted to obtain the medicine from producers of their own choosing. While the Netherlands is the second nation to formally sanction the medical use of marijuana, it is the first to incorporate it in its standard system of prescription drug regulation. The Canadian government established a medical marijuana program in July 2001, but only a limited number of patients have made it through the complex permission process. In addition, Canada has yet to provide these patients with a legal means of obtaining their medicine, a problem that has led to continuing litigation. "This is yet another indication of how out-of-step the U.S. is on medical marijuana policy," said Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "While the Netherlands is guaranteeing patients safe access to quality-controlled medical marijuana through doctors and pharmacies, we're still fighting just to keep people with cancer and AIDS out of jail. Americans like Ed Rosenthal face up to 40 years in federal prison for providing the same service to patients that the government of the Netherlands is ensuring through licensed producers and pharmacies. The rest of the world increasingly regards the U.S. policy of criminalizing medical marijuana patients and providers as cruel and pointless." The Dutch Office of Medicinal Cannabis can be reached by telephone at 011-31-70-340-5129. The new Dutch law and implementation regulations can be viewed at http://www.mpp.org/Dutch . With 11,000 members nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is imprisonment. To this end, MPP focuses on removing criminal penalties for marijuana use, with a particular emphasis on making marijuana medically available to seriously ill people who have the approval of their doctors.