Few defend legal marijuana users
Editorial: Russell Barth, Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK), 08-08-09

Few defend legal marijuana users

The punitive policy structure regulating medical marijuana use in Canada is utterly insane, not to mention inhumane.

This is by design. If the program were a success, more people would use it. Then more people would be getting well, not having seizures and not dying.

Then they'd talk in the media about how pot is great and saved their lives, and that totally undermines the government's propaganda war against pot.

So they underfund it, understaff it, and make up rules that are nearly impossible to adhere to. The pot grown by Prairie Plant Systems is oxidized, full of seeds and stem (making it worse to smoke), zapped with gamma radiation (which kills half the medicine), and stinks of chemicals (because it wasn't grown properly).

It is already paid for with taxpayers' dollars, but Health Canada still has the gall to charge sick and dying people $5 a gram for this mulch.

The government has set up an unconstitutional program to prop up an unconstitutional prohibition. The office actually calls the doctor to discourage higher doses (practising medicine without a licence is apparently legal for bureaucrats), and licensees are harassed by police and routinely discriminated against. We have to carry special papers to keep us out of jail because we have medical conditions. It's medical segregation!

The media seems to think that it's just a few sick people who want to get high. Almost no one comes to our defence, as we're systematically discriminated against and stigmatized by our own government.

RUSSELL BARTH

Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis

© 2004 H.U.M.A.N.: Hemp Users Medical Access Network - Toronto Medical Marijuana