Charles Bury's marijuana use in hospital stirs debate

Charles Bury, longtime and former editor of the Sherbrooke Record, is in palliative care and dying of Stage4 liver cancer, but hes unlike any patient Quebec'sSherbrooke University Hospital Centre has ever seen.

Ive never died before, so I dont know exactly what its going to be like.- Charles Bury

Bury uses medically prescribed marijuana in his hospital room with a vaporizer, which emits little odour and no smoke, to help curb his anxiety.

Its a remedy that helps you to relax and you cant help but being nervous and tense when youre put in a position like this, Bury says.

Ive never died before, so I dont know exactly what its going to be like. This will help me to get my way through that, I hope. Taking it easy on the way through.

Bury, by his own account, has used marijuana since he was 16. He discovered the vaporizer, made by British Columbia-based company Vapor Daddy, about seven years ago.

I found out I didnt cough as much [with the vaporizer]. I wont go to heaven without it, Bury says.

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The vaporizer is a simple-looking contraption. The marijuana, which Bury says is produced by friends, sits inside a glass vial on a heating element inside a rectangular wooden box. A flexible tube is used to breathe in the vapour.

Inside it Ive put some marijuana, OK. That green stuff is pot. Its been in there for a few minutes now heating up, so its just about ready to go, Bury tells CBC reporter Alison Brunette.

Marijuana use a reasonable request

The marijuana was prescribed by Dr. Carl Bromwich at the Sherbrooke University Hospital after Bury made a simple request.

Bury says the doctor didnt hesitate for a minute. Security even came by to unlock and open the window for him.

Bromwich says he thought Burys request was reasonable.

He said that it was something that hed been using for some time and he felt it was an important part of being well, of feeling as well as he could feel. And I didnt see any issue with it since there was no question of smoke or flame. So I prescribed it so it wouldnt be an issue with the nurses, Bromwich says.

The doctors suspicion that the hospital did not have a policy on the use of medicalmarijuana on hospital property proved true. Since Burys story has been made public, the hospital administration has asked Bromwich to withdraw his prescription, and he complied. He says the administrators told him the request was in the interest of them developing a policy.

I think thats a reasonable thing. I made the order to take care of one patient and his needs but the administration of course has to regard the interest of the hospital, of all the patients in the hospital as a whole, so they want to study the issue further, Bromwich says.

He believes that, given the context of Quebecs open debate on developing euthanasia policy, the use of marijuana in hospitals is not a cause for great concern.

Still, Burys daughter was told that security would be coming back around to close and lock her fathers window for the time being.

Listen to CBC's Alison Brunette explain Charles Bury's journey:

Pot-usingpolicy to come?

Sherbrooke University Hospital and Quebecs College of Physiciansboth said they hadnt yet considered the issue of using marijuana in hospitals.

"This new situation leads us to consider the question for the future, because marijuana is not a substance authorized by the [hospital]. It is not written on the list of authorized products for prescription by doctors," says hospital spokeswomanSylvie Vallires.

Yet Adam Greenblatt of Montreals Medical Cannabis Access Society says Burys case is not the first in Quebec.

Ive worked with a few patients here in Montreal who have had permission to vaporize cannabis in their hospital rooms, so its not unheard of, Greenblatt says.

But by the same token, i have also heard stories from patients who have been kicked off of hospital property for medicating with cannabis which theyre authorized to use, he continues.

Bury may not have the authorization of the hospital or its staff to use marijuana in his hospital room, but his vaporizer remains by his bedside.

Theres not going to be a guard posted outside his door to make sure he doesnt use his vaporizer, Bromwich says.