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Representatives of licensed medical marijuana companies are being sent to doctors’ offices as part of the push to get hesitant physicians to prescribe the drug more often.

It’s a development that has dismayed Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti, the president of the Canadian Medical Association, who says that a largely unproven treatment is now being thrust upon doctors, leaving them caught between at least some patients looking to score drugs and the vendors looking to peddle them.

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“I’m actually quite frightened,” he said.

Francescutti said some of Canada’s 13 licensed marijuana producers are operating in the same way that pharmaceutical companies do.

“They’ve got product they have to move. So they’ve hired the best advertising firms,” he said. “Now, they’ve got very professional, well-dressed men and women knocking on doctors’ offices.”

That’s a problem for Francescutti, at least in part, because he doesn’t think medical marijuana has been put through stringent enough testing. Frankly, he said, there is a lack of medical evidence that marijuana products are effective.