EMBERS DYING FOR FEDERAL 'WEED'

"Hey, any of you guys ever seen government weed?"

Well, I've heard a lot of things at middle-aged cocktail parties, but
never that. It was a "Yup," he continued, pulling out a tightly
rolled joint (a new definition, I suppose, for cancer sticks), "it's
100-per-cent legal, federally approved dope, delivered under seal in
a foil pouch. By Purolator."

With that, he fired it up. Just because he was at a party didn't mean
he could go without his medicine.

The odour of the 1970s soon filled the room. Not because I haven't
smelled it since then, but because the weed itself had the peculiar
atmosphere of marijuana from the era before North American hippie
science worked its cultivational magic. It had all the earmarks of
what the kids nowadays would call shwag, pure shwag.

So this is the stuff I read about, the roundly criticized pot grown
by Prairie Plant Systems Inc. deep in a mine at Flin Flon, Manitoba.
This "biosecure facility" -- presumably superior to a basement in
Chestermere Lake -- specializes in growing a strain it calls MS-17/338.

According to the federal website, one of the goals of the program is
to create a completely consistent profile from plant to plant, which
any botanist will tell you is the death knell for achieving maximum potency.

What's worse, the feds mill the final product, ensuring the mostly
inert stem portions will dilute the dosage. (And contribute to a
"light weigh," as any baggie purchaser on the street would grumble).

"Yeah, it's pretty weak," Bud noted. "It's supposed to test out to
about 10 per cent THC, compared to 30 per cent for good quality
hydroponic from your neighbourhood dealer. But all that matters is it
works. It kills the nausea from chemo and gives me an appetite. The
plant's a miracle that way, and even the feds can't stomp that out of it."

Then, Bud pulled out his government ID card for the medical marijuana
program, which we all agreed looked curiously like a 1970s driver's
licence, the sort of document you could forge in about 30 seconds.

"Trust me, though," said Bud. "Nobody's going to do that. You don't
want to be on this program." To legally qualify, Health Canada
requires that the patient's disease must be categorized by an
approving doctor as "grave and debilitating."

Bud's card specifies he is eligible to purchase up to 120 grams a
month, though he doesn't necessarily order as much as he could. Each
gram costs $5, and it's all cash, like any weed merchant.

Neither government nor private health plans will contribute to it.
Thus, some ill but impoverished patients have found themselves behind
on their payments, and have been ejected from the program.

That's just one more reason why the recent Grant Krieger court
decision is so important. Krieger was simply growing a few plants to
alleviate his own suffering with multiple sclerosis, and to share
with others of his kind.

To criminalize his activities, and that of numerous other cannabis
compassion clubs who provide quality marijuana product to patients,
is simply wrong.

It has been reported that, of all the Canadians who qualify for
federal weed, 85 per cent of them don't bother, and continue to buy
their medicine on the black market. Thus many pot activists expressed
dismay that Prairie Plant Systems recently received a one-year
extension of their government contract.

Meanwhile, in a poll released last week, 93 per cent of Canadians
surveyed approve of allowing medically qualified patients to use
marijuana legally.

One would hope the Harper government is paying attention. But having
recently chopped their entire $4 million budget for medical marijuana
research, the signs don't look all that promising, especially if it
ever earns a majority.

"This card," says Bud, "is only good for one year. I'm afraid that
when it expires, there may not be another."