Canada is acting compassionately by allowing people who are suffering to have access to marijuana

Health Minister Allan Rock

After a lawsuit last summer, a court ordered the Canadian Government to clarify the procedure for obtaining the drug for medical purposes. The new regulations are a response to that ruling.

Mr Rock said a licence to grow marijuana would be issued to patients, or their designated representative if their medical condition did not allow them to cultivate it.

"Canada is acting compassionately by allowing people who are suffering from grave and debilitating illnesses to have access to marijuana for medical purposes", he said on Friday.

US concerns

There have been concerns about the policy in the United States, Canada's powerful neighbour to the south, where the Justice Department opposes medical use of marijuana.

Rolling a marijuana cigarette

But a number of individual US states allow the practice.

Mr Rock denied that the new regulations were a step towards decriminalising cannabis.

"We've had medical access to morphine and heroin for a long time and it hasn't been the thin edge of the wedge for legalising those drugs", he said.

In December, Canada licenced a private company, Prairie Plant Systems, to grow marijuana for medical use.

It is thought that Mr Rock is considering eventually relying on such private companies to provide medical marijuana so that patients will not have to grow it themselves.

Asked two years ago if he had used marijuana, Mr Rock - who spent a day with John Lennon in Ottawa in 1969 - said: "Not for medical purposes."