DOCTORS SHOULDN'T BE GATEKEEPERS

I have to agree with the idea that doctors ought not be the gatekeepers as
to who can and cannot use cannabis. I make the classic liberal argument of
John Stuart Mill that "each is the proper guardian of his own health,
whether bodily, or mental and spiritual.

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good
to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."

Prescription rights were born of drug prohibition. Our first drug law, the
Opium Narcotic Act of 1908, made provision for doctors to use opium for
medicinal purposes. Up until that time all drugs were freely available at
the corner store. Ceremonial drug use is as old as mankind is itself, there
were few problems with abuse until prohibition laws drove users to the
black market. Today the drug problem is still a marketing problem rather
than a drug problem per se.

There are plenty of studies done on cannabis. The 1973 Ledain Commission on
non-medical drug use has a long list of credits that show studies going
back to the turn of the century. Every study ever done said cannabis was
relatively benign.

The latest to add their voice was the independent World Health Organization
report that concluded cannabis was by far less harmful than tobacco and
alcohol, a study backed by plenty of anecdotal evidence offered up by all
users. There is even a study out, peer reviewed, that said cannabis smokers
were safer on the roads than those high on life because cannabis users tend
to slow their speed down and they leave plenty of time for reacting to
conditions. It is time to restore our natural right to drugs, all of them .
It is a right mankind has owned since time began.

A wealth of information can be found at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba