Ordering weed on the Web

By: Chris Webden - The Gazette - 02/06/03

Thanks to the friendly folks in the Marijuana Party of Canada, medicinal pot smokers can now order the sweet green buds from the comfort of their own couch.

Marijuanahomedelivery.com, an initiative of the MPC, is now up and running on the World Wide Web, and medicinal marijuana users can order their fix with the simple click of a button.

According to St-Maurice, the online compassion club is based in Montreal and was established as a means for medicinal users to access marijuana without having to purchase their medicine from black market dealers.

"There are a lot of people who don't have access to compassion clubs, but really need [marijuana]," St-Maurice said, adding users cannot purchase their pot without an official letter of diagnosis from their doctor, or a sworn declaration from a lawyer.

The Web site lists over 150 medical conditions approved as legitimate ailments for the medicinal use of the marijuana. The list includes all sorts of conditions, ranging from AIDS and schizophrenia to loss of appetite.

"The pain that is induced by AIDS may need some comforting medicine, especially in the terminal stages," said Yang Kang, a professor of biomedicine at Western and AIDS researcher.

According to Kang, several terminal disease sufferers experience severe pain, which pot smoking is said to alleviate.

Warren Neilson, a professor of medicine at Western and schizophrenia researcher, said, to his knowledge, research has not shown that marijuana has had huge effect at reducing symptoms in schizophrenics.