PROPOSED POT LAWS MURKY FOR ALL

Trying to understand the straight dope about marijuana's medicinal benefits
is hard for anyone to understand if they have never sampled a joint in
their lives, which would seem to extend to the entire scientific medical
community in this country.

The reality is that marijuana has become so prevalent in our society today,
as the children of the '60s and their attitudes about drug use have evolved
into the grandparents of this century's first new generation. We even have
political parties now that advocate for possession of cannabis to be
decriminalized.

The scientific evidence, or lack of it, is far behind what most people
themselves accept to be true or not true based on their own usage or moral
and ethical ideals.

As a teenager of the late '70s and young adult in the early '80s, that was
a time for me when coming across someone who smoked marijuana always
carried with it a reaction of hesitancy, in my mind that person was doing
something that went over the edge.

You could overindulge in alcohol and throw up to your heart's content. Big
deal. But if someone pulled out one of those funny little cigarettes, that
was something different, there was that element of danger about it.

Today, the use of marijuana is so prevalent I don't even think twice about
it, so common is its usage today.

So it all makes me wonder why the federal government continues to embark in
such small steps up to this point to make marijuana a legal drug for
individual Canadians to possess for treatment against pain caused by
illness, or to aggressively try to generate that absent scientific research.

The new Health Canada regulations published this week will allow patients
with chronic or terminal illnesses to apply to Health Canada for permission
to grow, possess and use marijuana to relieve their symptoms. These new
regulations apply to palliative patients who have less than a year to live;
to patients suffering from AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord
injuries, severe arthritis or epilepsy; and to patients suffering from
other conditions, if marijuana use is recommended by two specialists.

In every case, the application must be signed by a doctor, who must
indicate that "the benefits from the applicant's recommended use of
marijuana would outweigh any risks associated with that use."

This new policy has left the Canadian Medical Association in a bit of a
quandary. Besides the lack of available scientific research, they're also
being empowered to draw a line between who is and who is not among their
patients to be absolved from criminal prosecution for growing their own
pot. Not a very comfortable position to be placed in.

The police can't be totally happy with this either. Added to the fact that
they don't have the resources to keep up with the illegal pot operations
now in existence, further red tape has been entered into their job of
having to determine who is and isn't legally allowed to cultivate their own
marijuana.

Even marijuana advocates are dissatisfied by not allowing medium-sized
commercial operations to grow pot for these doctor-approved clients, rather
than forcing each patient to grow their own supply. They point out the cost
to set up a hydroponic garden is about $2,000 and if they are bed-ridden,
who will tend the marijuana harvest?

Who remains rather quiet in this debate so far, and perhaps might explain
why the federal government is treading with such short strokes forward on
this issue, is the pharmaceutical drug industry.

Marijuana holds out the potential of being a relatively inexpensive
alternative to prescription drugs which both cost millions for drug
companies to research and which generate millions for them in revenues.

The lobby efforts of these companies commands considerable influence within
the halls of government power in Ottawa, as was made evident by the
roadblocks the feds created against herbal remedy producers.

So while many talk about the fears of marijuana being an addictive drug and
about the lack of "official" research into its impact on reducing pain,
what we are not hearing about is the impact this small step toward
legalization will have on the profit margins for drug companies.

I still think that is where the real battle lines will be drawn on the
legalization of marijuana, because the interest level to maintain the
possession as a crime status quo regarding cannabis will continue to dwindle.