That's a really important issue. I think that, in general, the policy of marijuana use, and even recreational use, is faster than the evidence presented, not just nationally but internationally.
From that angle, medicine, and also psychiatry as part of medicine, is quite conservative in that way. Why is that? People's lives and people's function and quality of life are in our hands. That's why evidence-based medicine is the best we can get. Without that, it's very difficult to tell whether we're doing the right job to treat the patient. All medications have side effects but to a certain extent we know what's going to happen and how we're going to prevent it, which we discuss very thoroughly with our patients.
This is probably the only medication that's not been endorsed by Health Canada. It's not been approved for that but it's being authorized by physicians. We are in a dilemma, in a very dramatic situation. I know some patients might need it, but how could a physician like me go beyond the concept of no harm? The basic ethical thing for us is to cause no harm. Before I know whether it causes harm or not and I prescribe it...that's why I do not do it.
Also, we do not have any training. Our previous training was that it was bad. Suddenly now it's good, but we don't know how good it is. That's the dilemma.