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The nation’s doctors should not feel obligated to prescribe marijuana to patients seeking it for pain relief or other medical purposes, Canada’s federal health minister says.

“Let me be clear: Health Canada does not endorse the use of marijuana, nor is it an approved drug in this country, nor has it gone through any of the clinical trials that other pharmaceutical products that are approved in this country have gone through,” Rona Ambrose told reporters Monday following her opening address to the Canadian Medical Association’s annual general meeting in Ottawa.

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“The majority of the physician community do not want to prescribe it, they don’t want to be put in a situation where they’re pressured to prescribe it and I encourage them to not prescribe it if they’re not comfortable with it,” she said.

The Canadian Medical Association says doctors have been thrust into an “untenable” position by being made the sole gatekeepers to legal pot. Outgoing president Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti recently suggested that people who seek the drug in a doctor’s office are just looking for “dope.”