Why Arab states want to shut down Al-Jazeera

Guests: David Kirkpatrick, Adel Iskandar

SOUNDCLIP

The nation of Qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding.

MF: United States President Donald Trump weighing in last month on the diplomatic showdown in the Gulf. And it's a showdown that's heating up in a major way this week. Three Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain plus Egypt—cut ties with their neighbour, the state of Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. The countries’ long list of demands for Qatar include: shutting down Al Jazeera, the cable news network funded by Qatar’s ruling family. The deadline passed this week. Qatar refused. Al Jazeera, meanwhile, is under attack on another front—the Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy. He was working for Al Jazeera when he was thrown into an Egyptian prison for more than a year. He's suing the network for $100 million. And new information about that lawsuit has just come to light, including where some of the money has come from. There's a lot to unpack here, but we have David Kirkpatrick joining us to help us do just that. He's an international correspondent for the New York Times and former chief of that paper's bureau in Cairo and he's in London. Hello.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Hello.

MF: Let's talk about Mohamed Fahmy in a moment. First, why have these four Arab states—the Gulf States and Egypt—ganged up on Qatar?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: At base, this is a contest about power and autonomy within the Persian Gulf. Qatar for decades now has suspected that Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, its larger neighbours, have been trying to control it. There is evidence that two decades ago they plotted a coup against a member of the Qatari royal family. Since then, Qatar has been trying to carve an independent course of its larger neighbors and that has included establishing its pioneering news network Al Jazeera and forming a kind of alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. That alliance in particular is of great concern to the Saudi and Emirati monarchies because the Brotherhood doesn't like monarchies. They prefer a different form of government. And in the eyes of the Emiratis and the Saudis, that is promoting extremism. Layered on to the top of that is the fact that pretty much all of the Gulf countries, some more than others, have a problem with rich individuals using their money to support extremist or militant groups, especially in Syria. And at the moment, the Saudis and the Emiratis are accusing Qatar not only of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood through Al Jazeera and through other means, but of funding terrorism, of funding these militant groups and they're probably singling out Qatar a little bit unfairly in that respect.

MF: I was going to say how much stock can we put in that, and especially coming from Saudi Arabia which has—even this week there's a report out in Britain that you've written about this morning from the Henry Jackson Society accusing Saudi of a clear and growing link between Islamist organizations in receipt of overseas funds and hate preachers and jihadist groups.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Well, that report is mainly about what the author described as nonviolent extremism. So that is, they correctly note that Saudi Arabia has been promoting for some time, its very conservative and intolerant version of Islam. The authors of that report are drawing a line between that kind of ideology and in some cases, some imams who trained in Saudi Arabia and have come back to Great Britain and glorify violence or call for jihad. So the Saudis would say well, look, we actually teach our people to obey their rulers and we oppose violence. So this is not a fair accusation. And that also has some merit.

MF: Well, and of course Qatar would not agree that it is supporting terrorism either. The word gets thrown around a lot.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah. The bottom line is for the purposes of your listeners, none of the Gulf States is completely clean and I think none of them is actively supporting terrorism.

MF: Okay. So the deadline passes, it was extended and it was reached midweek around Wednesday and Qatar said no. So what's going to happen?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: That's a very good question. The other states met yesterday with Bahrain and they're talking about some kind of stepped up punishment or retaliation against Qatar for refusing to meet this deadline. But we don't know what that's going to consist of. Quite a bit of suspense right now.

MF: Why are they so fixated on Al Jazeera and wanting it to be shut down as one of the demands?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Well, Al Jazeera has given a platform to members of the Muslim Brotherhood who are Islamists but the kind of Islamists who like elections or say they like elections. During the uprisings of 2011, the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera across the region was cheering for those uprisings and encouraging them. And all of that is deeply troubling to the Saudis, the Emiratis and the new military government in Egypt.

MF: Okay. Now amidst the attack on Al Jazeera, we have Mohamed Fahmy and his lawsuit against Al Jazeera, which was his former employer. Why is he suing his former employer and Qatar, their state sponsor and not Egypt, the country that unjustly imprisoned him?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Well, that's a good question. He would say that Al Jazeera has put its journalists at risk by behaving in an unethical way, by promoting the Muslim Brotherhood. That caused him—Mohamed Fahmy—to get in trouble with the Egyptian authorities. And I think he would furthermore say that Al Jazeera failed in a number of crucial respects to follow through on what he considered his commitments to him, to preserve the independence of the English language branch of Al Jazeera where he worked, to keep it separate from the Arabic branch. But yes, I think a lot of people are asking the same question you're asking. If Egypt jailed you, why are you suing Qatar?

MF: Well, not only why are you suing Qatar. You're lining up with Egypt and ending up using pretty much the same discourse as his former jailers.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean Mohamed Fahmy is an Egyptian Canadian and I think he is very sympathetic to the current government of Egypt. I don't think he's ever been a big fan of the Muslim Brotherhood. It's also emerged that since he got out of jail and began pursuing this lawsuit, Mr. Fahmy sought funds to pay his legal bills and he obtained some of those funds from the Emirati ambassador to Washington. Now that ambassador is an old friend of his. They went to high school together in Egypt. So he's a natural person to turn to. On the other hand, it looks a little bit like he doesn't really have an arm's length relationship from the Emiratis and it complicates his position in terms of his lawsuit against the Qataris.

MF: Yeah. This all got a bit tricky, didn't it, because it did seem at first as though he was not admitting to the fact that he has received funds for his legal defence from this UAE ambassador.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah. He did say words to that effect in public. So he seemed to deny it and it turns out, according to some leaked e-mails, he was receiving some money. Now he says that's a loan. I'm not sure if we would call it a loan because I don't think he has made plans to pay it back in the event that his lawsuit fails—only if his lawsuit succeeds. But we should also note that the way this came to light was the hacking of the Emirati ambassador's e-mails and that's been done as part of a broad surveillance campaign against Mohamed Fahmy, which many believe was carried out at the behest of the government of Qatar certainly for its benefit.

[Crosstalk]

MF: Something quite creepy because they had him under surveillance for some considerable time and they've delivered to you a several hundred pages-long report.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah. I mean I don't know exactly who delivered it to me. It came through intermediaries. But certainly it looks like it was done for the benefit of Qatar and Qatar seems to be doing a lot of that lately. So yes, Mohamed Fahmy took some money from the Emirati ambassador to Washington and that looks bad. At the same time, he's been the target of a surveillance campaign that I think you accurately described as creepy, by the government of Qatar. So it's quite a complicated and messy story all around.

MF: You gave him some money for his defence fund.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, I did. I was the Cairo bureau chief for the New York Times and all of the foreign correspondents in Cairo were very concerned that the Egyptian government had arrested three of our colleagues working for Al Jazeera, including Mohamed Fahmy, based only on the content of their broadcasts and their journalism and who they might have met with. So this was a collective issue for all of us and when he set up a crowdfunding site to try to support his legal defence, I felt like I should give a symbolic sum and I gave a hundred dollars. I actually disclosed that at the time over Twitter.

MF: Yeah, and the loan here is of a whole another order.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, it’s $250,000.

MF: Right.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: But also, let's be clear. What I was contributing to was getting a journalist out of jail. So that's different than suing an employer for a hundred million dollars.

MF: What does all of this say and Mr. Fahmy’s role in particular say about the larger conflict between Qatar on one side and its Gulf neighbours and Egypt on the other?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: It says something that people have been paying attention to and have known for some time, which is nobody looks very good or very clean here. I think these countries are willing to go to great lengths to try to smear each other in the court of international public opinion and they're willing to go to extraordinary lengths, including hacking and funding lawsuits and propaganda campaigns and hiring lobbyists and doing everything they can to try to influence opinion in favour of one side or the other in their internal feud.

MF: David, thank you very much.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: It was a pleasure.

MF: New York Times international correspondent David Kirkpatrick. He was in London. We contacted Mohamed Fahmy and he sent us a statement which says in part: “I hired my Canadian lawyers during my incarceration and began preparing the lawsuit after I realized the extent of Al Jazeera's negligence and the breach of contract that contributed to my incarceration. I borrowed money from an old high school friend.” He's referring to the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Washington. He continues: “All money was sent to lawyers. During an interview with senior RCMP officials following the hack, I accused the state of Qatar for the criminal breach of my privacy.” And he concludes this way: “I continue to speak truthfully about Qatar’s support of terrorism and Al Jazeera's wrongdoing.”

SOUNDCLIP

As much as anyone waiting to see what comes out of the political discussions.

MF: That's Giles Trendle. He's acting managing director of Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera won't comment on the Mohamed Fahmy lawsuit, but has been speaking out about allegations of bias and calls for it to be shut down. Giles Trendle spoke with National Public Radio in the United States earlier this week from Doha, the capital of Qatar and here's how he says they're currently advising Al Jazeera staff.

SOUNDCLIP

Well, we're telling them “keep calm and carry on.” I know it sounds a bit of a cliché, but everybody is at their desks. It's business as normal but it's obviously an unusual situation. All we can do as journalists is continue to do our jobs to the best of our ability. We have a great team of journalists. Our reporting is professional and objective and we will carry on doing that. I'm with Al Jazeera for 12 years and I enjoy being here because it's a company that is committed to reporting the truth and all aspects of the truth. So as long as it does that, I’m happy.

MF: There have been criticisms that Al Jazeera Arabic favours organizations that aim to destabilize states like the UAE or Egypt in a way that Al Jazeera English does not. Mr. Trendle disagrees.

SOUNDCLIP

Look, the two channels—Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English—are coming from the same stable. But one thing to understand is that a different language is expressed in different ways. There's a cultural context here. So there have been many accusations against Al Jazeera Arabic, but it's the same editorial ethos about getting all sides of the story to provide a full perspective. The cultural context and the language is one such that it's much more expressive and passionate whereas maybe the English language, we might be more reserved and stiff upper lip. And really if you want to hear inflammatory television, then just tune into Egyptian TV or TV coming out of other states.

MF: Giles Trendle, acting managing director of Al Jazeera English speaking to National Public Radio earlier this week from Doha. To talk more about why the Gulf States and Egypt are targeting Al Jazeera, we're joined by Adel Iskandar. He's the co-author of Al Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism. He's also director of the global communications program at Simon Fraser University. He's in Vancouver. Adel, hello.

ADEL ISKANDAR: Hello.

MF: And this really has escalated. There’s a blockade in effect for Qatar. They’re needing to fly in supplies and food. Why is all of this happening now, this pressure to shut down Al Jazeera? Why does it come now?

ADEL ISKANDAR: I think it's coming now largely because this is an opportune moment for the Gulf countries and Egypt to target Qatar. They see the influence of Qatar slowly waning. Many of the parties politically and otherwise the Qataris have supported in the region, whether it's in Syria or Egypt or Libya or elsewhere, are slowly sort of in decline. And of course there is a fairly unstable and unpredictable global foreign affairs scenario with the rise of the Trump administration, and that of course creates the room and the space and the latitude for these Gulf countries to essentially seal the deal on Qatar’s rogue approach to politics in the last few years. So this to them seems like the best case scenario. And it’s also happening at a time when Al Jazeera is no longer the real trendsetter in the regional sort of journalistic landscape. So they probably suspect that by going for the jugular, if you will, that the overall impact of either a closure of Al Jazeera or a real sort of shackling of the network would have very limited repercussions or a major sort of global or regional outcry.

MF: Okay. Let's come to that, how Al Jazeera has changed in a moment, but just before we do: the central allegation that Al Jazeera supports “terrorism”—your view?

ADEL ISKANDAR: It's a complicated point. So I think as opposed to the statement issued by or at least the commentary offered earlier on your program from the gentleman at Al Jazeera English, the two networks, even though they may “come from the same stable,” they don't just reflect a different language. They reflect a completely different temperament and also a very clearly distinct way of aligning with political entities. The Al Jazeera Arabic—and I've written about this quite extensively, dating back to 2003—was a real trendsetter in the region and it was an example of freewheeling journalistic practice. But come 2012, after the uprisings began to materialize and specific political groups, largely Islamist bodies such as the Muslim Brotherhood became much more substantial in as far as electoral politics go, Al Jazeera Arabic became much more explicitly aligned with some of these Islamist groups. And that, of course if the coverage were to be translated into English, it would not meet the gold standard that Al Jazeera English broadcasts. Those are two vastly different editorial networks.

MF: What about Giles Trendle’s point that you want inflammatory television, go to the state television from Egypt or others in the Gulf?

ADEL ISKANDAR: That is not untrue. That is a fair statement. But today, Al Jazeera is no longer the Al Jazeera of yesteryear. Al Jazeera now reflects the government of Qatar's policies. Al Jazeera Arabic at least. It's a mirror image of the ministry of foreign affairs from Qatar which makes it no different in its inflammatory rhetoric from its adversaries, many of whom were left in, sort of in its dust back when Al Jazeera was in fact—

[Crosstalk]

MF: When it was blazing a trail.

ADEL ISKANDAR: Absolutely.

MF: Because at the time, it was doing something that just had never been done across the Arab world. People would sit down and turn up the television and they would watch.

ADEL ISKANDAR: Yes. And that has changed because of course the market share has also become much more complex. In the 21 years that Al Jazeera Arabic has been on air, there are at least 15 to 20 new networks that have emerged from different countries that have produced and reproduced and replicated and emulated Al Jazeera's style and they're drawing upon those audiences. So the audiences are much more segmented than ever before, meaning that Al Jazeera no longer has a monopoly on the public's attention. I mean admittedly, Al Jazeera Arabic as well as the government of Qatar believe that they were making a smart decision by aligning themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood. This was a political, strong crosscutting transnational political party with a huge reach that was on an ascendancy. Why not ride its tidal wave and see where it goes? And unfortunately they've been burned by this. The parties are in decline, the authoritarian states are on an ascendancy and their audiences are also increasingly fragmented.

MF: So the Al Jazeera that used to do things like put Israeli representatives on the air and discuss for instance the existence of God, that sort of thing, does that Al Jazeera still exist?

ADEL ISKANDAR: It does. Al Jazeera English still does what Al Jazeera Arabic used to do. In fact, it’s very funny. In 2003, in 2002, when I had first started working on the book with my colleague Mohammed El-Nawawy, one of our arguments was that we need an Al Jazeera English to replicate the experience of Al Jazeera Arabic, because the world journalistic kind of experience could benefit from this. Today I look back at this and think my goodness, Al Jazeera Arabic has a lot to learn from Al Jazeera English. So there needs to be a feedback mechanism because I think Al Jazeera Arabic has lost its way. Today its coverage, if you were to watch it, if you were to watch Al Jazeera Arabic, is no different from any other state broadcaster. It is a 24-hour pro-Qatari news and this is happening at a time when there were very, very few Qatari commentators on the network over the past 21 years. Qatari was not important enough to cover. So a lot of this is projecting and reflecting on the conflicts that exist outside of their national borders. But today, it's become almost a ministry of information.

MF: Adel, we have to leave it there because we're up against the clock. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

ADEL ISKANDAR: Thank you.

MF: Adel Iskandar, co-author of Al Jazeera: The Story of the Network that's Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism. He also teaches at Simon Fraser and he was in Vancouver. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

ENCORE | 'We have our dog back': B.C. woman treats pet with medical marijuana

Guests: Rebecca Hass

MF: Hello. I’m Mike Finnerty. You’re listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MF: Up next, canines, compassion and cannabis.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Dog wheezing and yelping]

VOICE 1: Hey, hey, hey, hey. I’ve given you your treatment puppy. You have your bone. You’re okay.

[Sound: Dog whimpering]

VOICE 2: Hi Hudson. How are you? Yeah, don’t lick my pants.

VOICE 1: [Laughs] He feels better if he’s licking your pants.

VOICE 2: I’d rather he didn’t lick my pants. Papa. Papa. Shh.

[Sound: Dog barking]

MF: That’s Hudson and his owner Rebecca Hass with her daughter trying to comfort Hudson. Soothing words and cuddles, and letting him lick their pants doesn't help much. Neither has anything the veterinarian had to offer. So Rebecca Hass went searching for something else, and that search has led her to some surprising places, specifically into the world of marijuana dispensaries and the gray area of dog meds. Rebecca Hass is a freelance writer and documentary producer who lives in Victoria, BC. She spoke with Anna Maria from Vancouver in March about her journey to find a treatment for Hudson. Here’s a reprise of that conversation.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hi, Rebecca.

REBECCA HASS: Good morning.

AMT: It's hard for me to listen to even a few seconds. Does Hudson do that a lot?

REBECCA HASS: He does it a lot. It's hard for me to hear it again actually. He does it every day. What started being sort of 10 to 20 minutes in the morning and the afternoon is now often for hours and it's just been getting worse and worse over the last year. I find it heartbreaking. And quite honestly, it's as you might notice, it's unbearable to listen to it.

AMT: Do you know why he's doing that?

REBECCA HASS: Well that's been a really curious journey for us. We started out talking to a vet to try and rule out something physical, because he doesn't limp or yelp when he's getting off furniture or up and down stairs. So we didn't think it was pain. He still goes for walks. I mean, the first question always with a dog is, is he eating well? And he sure does still love his food, which made us think it's anxiety. Which we thought might be caused by dementia, which in dogs is called a cognitive dysfunction, rather like people in dementia wards. So when we talked to a vet, they supported that idea, especially since his yipping at that point was really getting worse after four o’clock, sort of the witching hour apparently in wards as well. His mornings, not so bad, but by supper we really couldn't bear to be in the same room with him.

AMT: How old is Hudson?

REBECCA HASS: He's 14. So he's a senior citizen.

AMT: Yeah.

REBECCA HASS: He's a Portuguese water dog and he's on the big side. So he looks a little bit like a poodle. He's 85 pounds. He's very gray. And the life expectancy for this breed is 12 to 14 years, so he's absolutely on the upper end. And interesting to us, we entered his age into the Purina dog age finder online and he comes up as 96 in human years.

AMT: Ninety-six. Well, what makes you think Hudson has dementia?

REBECCA HASS: Well, he's always been sort of an extra needy dog, so the anxiety thing kind of clicked with us because he's always been extra sort of sucky, I would say, as a dog. But as he's grown older, it's become more pronounced. So if we're in the kitchen and I hug one of my kids, he immediately like gets in between us and sticks his head in. He's always standing on my feet. It's like he can't get close enough. And now sometimes in the house, you know, he'll get up and wander away and he'll just start to bark in another room while he’s staring at a wall. We call it non-sequitur barking.

AMT: Hmm.

REBECCA HASS: And you'll go in to see what's up and there's kind of nothing. So I think it's partially he doesn't want to be alone and he can't seem to sense where we are. He doesn't seem to notice anything in the room. It's a really strange behaviour pattern. You know, in terms of the anxiety, we've had separation issues that have accelerated to the point that we can't go away anymore. We used to kennel him if we were going to go away for a weekend. But he yips. As you heard, he yipped just like that at the kennel and they said you can't really bring him here anymore. So I had a friend come and stay in the house with him, but the same thing if we're not there. So I think we're pretty much—we're married to Hudson now to the bitter end.

AMT: What does your vet suggest for treatment then or to at least comfort Hudson?

REBECCA HASS: Yeah, this has been—this is like throwing darts at a board and never finding the centre. We started out really looking at the sort of joint pain, typical senior dog issues right? Maybe arthritis, so we did pretty expensive shots weekly. Those didn't really make any difference. We tried a calming treat it was called, which were also pretty expensive and didn't seem to make any kind of consistent difference. So at that point we left that veterinarian. We went to someone else and had a conversation. They were pretty much plugged into it's a cognitive disorder, but there's no real treatment for that for dogs. It's sort of that's how that is and you just live with it. But we really were not able to endure it. And I just couldn't ignore this dog that I can't seem to comfort.

AMT: That can't be easy for you then.

REBECCA HASS: It's not. I feel so bad. I feel like I failed my dog. When we had company over recently, he yipped so much during the visit, and we are getting pretty good at tuning out after seven o’clock, that yipping. We actually had a friend say have you thought about putting him down? I was like oh, no, he's fine. He really is still fine. He just is distressed sometimes.

AMT: Mm. You know, I was wondering, I was just going to ask you that. He does sound like he's suffering.

REBECCA HASS: Yeah, I know. And yet to see him, there is no real pain or discomfort. He really seems to be, as you hear, I was trying to sort of comfort him. He doesn't seem to have any issue that we can identify. It's sort of like the more we give him attention, also the more it accelerates the barking response. You know, and at the end of the day, he's like a member of our family. We got that dog when our children were both under five and he's been growing up with them. They're teenagers now. If I thought he was suffering physically it would be different, but I really feel it's mental. And I really wanted to find something that would help him.

AMT: So take us to the beginning of your search.

REBECCA HASS: Well, I happened to read an article in the New York Times, and it was about hemp and treating dogs. And I thought that was worth something, maybe I should look into. So there's a whole online community of people who were sharing their experiences about this, obviously especially in BC, California, quite a few in Oregon, Washington State. And so I encouraged my husband to stop in at a local dispensary on his way home from work. And sure enough, in the dispensary sitting out in plain view are dog cookies. But he wasn't allowed to buy them. So he said do I need to get a prescription from our vet? But the answer is no.

AMT: Really. So alongside the medical marijuana for people, there are products for the dogs. You can't, they're not for general sale. How are you supposed to get them?

REBECCA HASS: Well, this is interesting. So first of all, marijuana is extremely dangerous for pets. So it's not about sharing the marijuana that a human would buy for an animal because it's actually lethal for them. But there is this whole industry of companies that are making various hemp products that are specifically for your pet, exactly as my husband saw in that store. And they're called hemp-enriched treatments. I think it's sort of like maybe vitamin supplements. It might be the same idea for a human. But you can't buy it without a human prescription. So my husband had to make an appointment to go see our doctor, which is an odd thing to explain and say I need a prescription for marijuana. It's not for me. it's for my dog. [laughs]

AMT: [Laughs] And the doctor says yeah, sure.

REBECCA HASS: Well, there was a certain amount of eye rolling but of course, for a human prescription there's a long list of things you can have. And so my husband has a condition that you could certainly treat with marijuana and he didn't get a prescription. What he ends up getting is a note that says yes, he suffers from this condition. You take the note to the dispensary and voila, you can buy whatever you want, including things for your dog, which is what we wanted.

AMT: Okay. So you found the work around, but how did that work for Hudson?

REBECCA HASS: Well, we started out with the dog biscuits. They're really kind of tiny little things and it didn't seem to make any more difference than those other common treats we had bought from the vet. So then we went to an oil. That was something else they sold. It comes in a seafood flavour and it's labeled as a pet tincture for pain and anxiety.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Dog panting]

VOICE 1: Okay. So we shake it up. He said we have to shake it till our arm gets tired.

[Sound: Dog wheezing, yelping]

VOICE 2: Hudson.

VOICE 1: Oh, that’s quite a smell. [chuckles] He gets two drops.

[Sound: Dog yelping]

VOICE 2: OK.

VOICE 1: Once a day for five days and we see how he does. Are you ready, puppy? So one, two. Oh, jeez.

VOICE 2: Hudson is very excited.

VOICE 1: There you go, Hudson.

[Sound: Chewing]

REBECCA HASS: Boy, he really devoured that biscuit. [laughs]

AMT: Mm. That was to help him wash it down, I guess, huh?

REBECCA HASS: Yes.

AMT: Did it help?

REBECCA HASS: No. We saw absolutely no change after all that work to get the actual prescription sort of note and pick it up. No. The real problem I found with that product is, having then followed a lot of online conversation, is that there's really nothing on that label that tells me what's in it, how much, an active component? And there’s no regulation really in this industry. And I had no expert to help me out.

AMT: Hm. So that one didn't help but you didn't stop.

REBECCA HASS: No, because I really still needed help. The dog is still whining and I know if vets aren't prescribing it then surely, as I'm seeing people are using it. I reached out into my Facebook community to see if a friend or a friend of a friend might be using products from a dispensary for their dog. And that's how I met Vicki Reesor and she doesn't live too far from me. So I paid her a visit.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Door knock and opening]

VICKI REESOR: Hi.

REBECCA HASS: Hi. [chuckles]

[Sound: Footsteps]

REBECCA HASS: Oh my goodness, listen to that tail. Hi, you must be Molson. Hi.

VICKI REESOR: [laughs]

REBECCA HASS: Oh, I love dog licks. [chuckles] Did you bring me your toy? Did you bring me your toy?

REBECCA HASS: So Vicki has a 70 pound pit bull, really lovely dog named Molson.

SOUNDCLIP

REBECCA HASS: Should we sit at the table?

VICKI REESOR: Yes. Here, why don’t you have this chair?

REBECCA HASS: So we sit in the kitchen and I asked Vicki how she got started treating her dog with cannabis.

SOUNDCLIP

VICKI REESOR: I have a dispensary card for my own use and I've had the products in my house. And when he was obviously in pain, I decided to experiment. The first couple of doses I gave him were on occasions when it was an evening. He was appearing distressed, shaking actually, which I didn't really know was a sign of pain. I would ask him what's wrong? Why are you shivering? And it's not obviously cold, so I thought maybe he was just cold, because he's a thin coated dog. But then one of my friends pointed out that shaking can be a sign of pain. And she had seen it in one of her own dogs when he was obviously in pain because he was injured. So that's when I decided to try dosing him with cannabis oil.

AMT: So she did her own home diagnosis and experimentation as well?

REBECCA HASS: Yes. I think many of us are at a complete loss, especially when the veterinarian can't help. And if you start researching online, there's so much information about hemp products that treat dogs, a lot of different testimonials and opinions on what to use and how much. So it becomes a little bit of a game of guessing. And there's a lot of articles about accidental overdoses, when a dog gets into the human stash. So there's a lot of trial and error. Here's Vicki again, speaking to that.

SOUNDCLIP

VICKI REESOR: We're kind of in a vacuum and I don't really mind that. I'm kind of a bit of a maverick sometimes. And I feel like I kind of know what I'm doing. I'm very responsive to him and having been involved in cannabis culture for a long time and having seen other dogs dosed, I kind of know what the effects are. So I don't feel like I'm putting him in danger by experimenting with low doses. What I've been doing is putting this oil that I have, which is a known strength, into almond butter and then I just make the almond butter into little balls, and I know how much is in each one. And then when I think he needs one, I squish it onto a dog cookie and give it to him. When I give it to him, I'm relieved that I've done something.

REBECCA HASS: And have there been any downsides to it?

VR: Just one time I gave him too much. I felt bad then. I knew he would get over it. But I felt bad for him because he twitched every time I tried to touch him. So I just left him alone for two or three hours. He was fine.

AMT: It is risky when you experiment like that though.

REBECCA HASS: Mhm.

AMT: When you're trying to help your pet feel better, it's got to be terrible to think you’re making the pet worse?

REBECCA HASS: An absolutely horrible thing. But overall, Vicki says the dose that she's using now is helping. And she just gives it to him when she feels he's in pain. So with that information, I was really still keen on trying to see if what Vicki had done with some success was something I could do to help my dog. So I went to a dispensary in Victoria, the Gorge Medijuana dispensary, and I talked to the man at the counter Cole Nairn. I told them I wanted to get some oil for my dog, and he told me that he's seeing a growing demand for products for pets and that many people don't have the marijuana card or a doctor's note to purchase.

SOUNDCLIP

For people who are coming in and they don't have the ability to get a membership, they're kind of left in a bit of a bind. And so I know it's one of those sort of weird small kind of untapped customer groups in a sense, because it's very circumstantial. People just come in, whether they’re customers, existing or not, and they come in and they say, you know, this is my situation, this is my dog and, you know, what can I do? I've had people from different pet service providers in the city call in and say we have clients here that have senior dogs that are asking about this treatment and we don't know what to tell them because it's like good luck. You know, coming into a dispensary with your pet and trying to—I don't even know how you would do that. You know, I don't even—it’s one of those things especially with how new the industry is too. In a perfect world, you should be able to just walk into the market or at any kind of like homeopathic care provider. You should be able to walk into a store like that and just buy it. But I don't know why. I think we all, I guess, know why, but I don’t know when that’s going to change unfortunately.

REBECCA HASS: I took advantage of the way things are currently and I was able to show him my photo ID, which gives me three months before I have to provide a doctor's note and I could purchase what I needed. So I bought a 30 millimetre bottle of CBD oil. So it's not pot, but it has one of the active compounds in that. It's a human grade. It’s exactly what humans would be using. And then I went home and started figuring out how to dose my dog using an online site.

AMT: You did all that without a vet?

REBECCA HASS: I did.

AMT: And what do veterinarians say about that?

REBECCA HASS: The official position of the Canadian Veterinary Association is that they do not endorse this. I talked to Shane Renwick. He's the associations manager of national issues and animal welfare. And he says there's lots of interest, this is intriguing to them and there does seem to be potential. But currently, there are no clinical trials that they can refer to. He said companies have been in touch about making these products for dogs and cats, but the responsibility totally falls upon the company to do the clinical trials and then they have to navigate the waters at Health Canada. So until a company wants to jump through those hoops, nothing's going to change in terms of cannabis treatment for pets. And ultimately, Shane Renwick says, the number one priority is animal welfare. And currently there just isn't any science to back up that these treatments are effective or safe.

AMT: So Rebecca, doesn't the lack of any scientific evidence make you think twice about experimenting on Hudson?

REBECCA HASS: No, it didn't. And I think partly because I felt that he was so in need and because it was worth the gamble to me to help him feel better. It is tricky. The medications I was seeing or the hemp products online, there's a lot of claims. It's really hard to tell exactly what it's for and even if anxiety would fall under that umbrella. But, you know, it kind of reminds me of the debate we have over medical marijuana for humans, right? There's still maybe not enough evidence for some doctors. There's not enough clinical study. But there are still people prescribing it, there are government licensed producers and we have dispensaries by the hundreds. I can hardly walk ten feet in my neighbourhood and not come across another one.

AMT: Well, given that, are any vets more open to this?

REBECCA HASS: Well, I found Katherine Kramer and she's an integrative veterinarian with the Animal Wellness Hospital in Vancouver. She's a vet but she also does animal acupuncture and alternative treatments. She's been looking into cannabis treatments for companion animals for several years. And so I took quite a bit of comfort in hearing that this idea isn't totally fringe. Here's what she told me.

SOUNDCLIP

Over the last, I would say, four or five years, the interest has grown exponentially. When I first got involved in using this, I would maybe have a case every month or so. And now I have multiple cases daily and I'm fielding calls from vets and pet owners across North America. A lot of my patients and pet owners are coming to me because conventional medicine has not been able to help them or they're still struggling with some pretty dramatic health issues. So most of the cases that I recommend CBD for are inflammation, any types of chronic pain. It's very helpful in seizure disorders and epilepsy. And the big thing too is as an adjunct to chemotherapy, any pet with cancer will definitely benefit from CBD.

AMT: She mentions CBD again. Why is that compound safe but marijuana not?

REBECCA HASS: That's part of the danger of being unguided as I was. We put our pets at real risk if we use these products without some knowledge. And I think that's because we just tend to Disney-fy our animals and we tend to think that whatever's helping us is going to be good for them. But actually it can be quite deadly if we use it improperly because there's a big difference between pot and CBD. CBD is one of the compounds in pot. I’ll let Katherine Kramer explain that.

SOUNDCLIP

Marijuana is toxic to dogs and cats and can be very, very harmful. Fortunately in hemp, which is very rich in a chemical called cannabidiol or CBD for short, and with CBD, you get the benefits of cannabis without the psychotropic effects that we see in marijuana because of the THC. So the great thing about that is we get all the health benefits with very few side effects.

REBECCA HASS: And again, these possible health benefits are not proven scientifically. But Katherine Kramer says she's seen CBD help people's pets many times over during the years.

AMT: But without the science and without any regulation or guidelines, approved guidelines, what does she do?

REBECCA HASS: Well, it puts her in a really tough position.

SOUNDCLIP

According to my college, I am not allowed to prescribe or recommend it. However, that being said, a lot of the pet owners are going to use it whether they tell me about it or not. And I would much rather they tell me and I can at least guide them on a safe place to obtain it and how to use it. Right now I feel like we're in a Catch-22, where vets are saying well, we don't know much about it because there's not enough research and there's not enough research because Health Canada and the USDA and the FDA in the States won't let us do research. So I think it's a real gray area and it's a little bit difficult to know how to proceed. But I think that if vets are leading the charge because they're being annoyed and harassed by pet owners wanting this, I think eventually, hopefully within the next few years, it's not going to be such an issue. But there definitely needs to be some companion animal research and some protocols and some guidance. But the vets that I talk to are very interested in it. And usually, you know, it only takes the first couple of cases to see, in some cases, an absolute miraculous response that they're convinced.

AMT: Okay. Rebecca, she talks about harassing pet owners. I guess that might be you.

REBECCA HASS: [Laughs] Yeah, I think I might be part of that charge.

AMT: Yeah yeah. Okay, so veterinarian Katherine Kramer in Vancouver, really interesting what she says there. But let's get back to Hudson. You said you've been trying CBD with Hudson. Are you seeing any of what she calls miraculous responses?

REBECCA HASS: Well, it was very trial and error when I started. And at first, it would help a little bit and I could tell because I could comfort him, which before just used to make him more agitated. So I knew he was getting better. And then we sort of accidentally overdosed him. One night my husband was doing it and I wasn't home and we had vomiting for the evening. But then we took Dr. Kramer’s advice and I actually went to a vet, who even though they're not prescribing, was willing to talk about dosage amounts. And it has transformed our life with our dog. So I'm a miracle story. We don't have—it was leading to yelling quite honestly, right? When the dog was whining all the time, people would just get angry. But now we don't have to do that. You can pet him. He just relaxes on his little bed. He's a little more mobile, which is sort of an accidental benefit I wasn't looking for. He plays even a little bit again and when he sleeps now, he really sleeps. He's not licking his front paw obsessively. He's not licking the pillow or our pants. He's calm. He's settled. He's still getting around. So he's absolutely a miracle success story. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but it has really changed our life with our dog. We feel like we have our dog back and we feel like he's at peace, and that's what we really wanted.

AMT: It’s so fascinating, huh? So from what we heard at the beginning to now he's okay. But it's a real quandary, isn't it, when you have a pet you are desperate to help?

REBECCA HASS: Yeah, it was scary to venture into this because it was such a gray zone. And I felt pretty lonely often on the journey. An animal is such a helpless thing. I think it reminds me of when my children were babies and they'd be crying and you just wanted to help them desperately and you wish they could say to you what they needed but they can't. And at a basic human level, when we see things suffering, we are called to do something. I think the other thing that was really painful is actually having friends judge us, that we somehow were not looking after our dog or that we were cruel and unfeeling because of those yipping noises he was making, which was also really painful. And the last thing, and many pet owners will identify with this, is the cost. So as your pet ages, they become more and more expensive. And I don't like to bring money into it, but it becomes financially a burden. And here I am now with a dog that I can actually ease his suffering as he gets older. And this is a really affordable solution.

AMT: Wow. Rebecca, thank you for bringing us this story.

REBECCA HASS: My pleasure.

MF: Anna Maria’s conversation with Rebecca Hass. She’s a writer and broadcaster, freelancer who lives in Victoria, British Columbia with Hudson and the rest of the family. Since that conversation first aired in March, Rebecca has been inundated with people seeking advice on how to use cannabis as a remedy for their own pets. In the meantime, Hudson’s now getting a cannabis treatment once a day, seems to be doing well and is mostly pain-free. Visit our website to see some photos of Hudson and Molson and tell us what you think. Would you treat your pet with cannabis or have you? Let us know by clicking on the contact link. That is on our website: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can also post on our Facebook page. Just search for “CBC The Current” on Facebook, or you can tweet us. We are @TheCurrentCBC. That’s our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for the BBC show Short Cuts. This week, an innocent encounter tips from flirtation to danger and a partner drops a revelation that turns him, in an instant, into a stranger. Host Josie Long delves into stories of brushes with the unknown on Short Cuts. I’m Mike Finnerty. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current and we will see you again here at the same time and the same place tomorrow.

The Current Transcript for July 6, 2017

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

Why Arab states want to shut down Al-Jazeera

ENCORE | 'We have our dog back': B.C. woman treats pet with medical marijuana

July 6, 2017 full episode transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode