MARIJUANA LAW A BUMMER, MAN

Stupid. Illogical. Childish. Bureaucratic. I trust I have made my feelings
clear about Canada's new federal law on the medicinal use of pot.

That's the bit of legislation which came into effect on Monday which
permits certain ill people to legally grow and smoke pot. They are: those
with a prognosis of death within 12 months; those who have such diseases as
multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV/AIDS; and those with other serious
conditions which have proved resistant to conventional treatments.

Let me repeat -- childish and bureaucratic.

But do not leap to agree with my opinion. Perhaps you should listen instead
to the puffed up pundits, several of whom got on my TV Monday night to wave
the Maple Leaf, because "this makes Canada the first ever nation to
legalize the use of marijuana by seriously ill people."

Morons. Being first doesn't necessarily mean being sensible, and this law
is not sensible. If it were sensible it would simply state that anyone with
a diagnosed illness who finds comfort in smoking marijuana, may do so. For
example, I have a good friend who has MS. She is in little pain but if in a
few months or a few years she finds herself suffering, I do not wish her to
be forced into jumping through legal hoops -- a simple note from the doctor
who has been treating her all along is surely adequate.

If that time comes, perhaps, even though she's not the best horticulturist
in the world, she can grow herself a marijuana plant in her living room
window and smoke the stuff. Indeed, the way to put this stupidly
bureaucratic law into perspective is to imagine your best friend, mother,
father, daughter or son in dire pain and then ask yourself just how much
bureaucratic nonsense you want them to have to go through in order to gain
some relief.

But again, don't listen to me. Instead, hark unto the Canadian Medical
Association which has stated that not enough is known about marijuana's
long-term health effects. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Manitoba is also against the new law.

Long-term health effects? On people who have 12 months to live? Long-term
health effects? On people suffering from diseases for which there is no cure?

Morons.

"There has been no testing of this drug," several doctors have stated --
doctors who obviously were not around in the '60s or '70s or '80s or '90s
and may not be here now.

Some eminent medical practitioners say there's a danger all sorts of
undeserving, perfectly healthy louts will try to get notes from their
doctors so they, too, can grow and smoke pot.

Do not make me guffaw. Anybody who smokes the stuff recreationally already
knows exactly where to get it, has known for years and would hate to go to
a doctor to do so. Not cool. Besides, I am not talking here about
legalizing marijuana in general -- that is for another column; the topic of
this column is restricted to the medicinal use of pot.

I have, or I should say had, several friends living -- and then dying --
with AIDS, and all of them said the same thing -- that if an experimental
drug came along, they'd be willing to try it and also willing to sign
whatever needed to be signed absolving the medical profession and/or the
pharmaceutical companies from any responsibility whatsoever. People with
incurable diseases do not have time for 6,102 tests -- especially stupid
tests. Down through the ages, people have used substances such as opium or
marijuana to ease pain and countless people with MS or cancer have stated
emphatically that while nothing else eased their pain, cannabis did.

I don't care if that easing is only in the mind of the patient in some
cases -- it is the easing that counts. At the very least, AIDS patients
have told me pot relaxes them -- relaxation in such cases being a gift.

Finally, does someone, perhaps from the federal government, or maybe a
doctor, wish to explain to me why a person dying of lung cancer (or anyone
for that matter) can legally smoke tobacco without getting a note from his
mommy, while that same person has to jump through hoops to smoke marijuana.
There is a terrible irony in the fact that tobacco kills and it is legal,
while marijuana may just give relief to those in pain, and yet we make its
use difficult.

Finally, I am in complete agreement with Mr. Bumble in Charles Dicken's
Oliver Twist as he commented, " ... the law is a ass, a idiot."

As are some members of the medical profession.

Have I made myself clear? Good.