MOUNTIES ADDICTED TO ANTI-POT IDEOLOGY

Medical Marijuana Patients Offended By RCMP Drug-Awareness Campaign

Medical marijuana patients and some B.C. drug educators are angry the RCMP
continues to demonize their medicine and is distributing misleading
material that paints the drug as illegal and dangerous.

For medical patients suffering from a variety of illnesses, they say,
marijuana not only is legal, but also it is exceedingly safe.

"How would you like to be using marijuana to counter the nausea of
chemotherapy and your kid comes home from school saying the local Mountie
says you should be turned in?" fumed Judith Renaud, executive-director of
Educators for a Sensible Drug Policy.

Although the material handed out by RCMP officers in schools and posted on
the force's website is attributed to the "Addictive Drug Information
Council," the so-called council is a front for the force's regional drug
awareness service. It operates out of Mountie headquarters on Heather Street.

I called the RCMP to ask about this apparent nonsense. I'm still waiting to
hear from them.

I think this is a case of old habits dying hard -- it's tough for cops to
see pot as anything other than an evil since they've been upholding the pot
prohibition for so long.

But coming as it does so soon after both the RCMP commissioner and Public
Safety Minister Anne McLellan tried to blame pot growers for the tragic
murder of four Mounties in Alberta by a putative psychopath, it does raise
my eyebrows.

McLellan has been lambasted by medical marijuana supporters for some time
over her ill-informed comments on pot -- especially for her assertion last
year that "there have been no studies anywhere in the world that have been
able to confirm medicinal benefit."

While medical research has been stymied over the years because of the
criminal prohibition, patients' groups quickly set the record straight:
There are numerous studies confirming marijuana offers relief to patients
suffering from a variety of ailments.

A British company is expected to begin marketing a marijuana spray in
Canada later this year that will be available through pharmacies, and other
companies are exploring a variety of medical applications for the plant and
its constituent chemicals.

The Mounties, too, have been under fire from pot supporters for spending
$225,000 on two self-serving studies that suggested the increasing dangers
of marijuana growing operations were an argument for greater enforcement
and harsher sentencing.

As noted economist Stephen Easton pointed out, the numbers actually show
the criminal prohibition is an continuing disaster and that the underground
industry is so pervasive it can no longer be controlled by law enforcement
and should be legalized.

Renaud believes emphatically that what the Mounties are doing is wrong --
she said they should be upholding the law, not producing propaganda aimed
at slowing political change.

"I think this is serious," she said, "because they're hiding their
affiliation. I don't think they should be in the schools at all. It's not
their job to be drug educators, they're police officers."

Barb St. Jean, editor of Cannabis Health, a magazine devoted to the medical
use of marijuana, is equally incensed.

"If it's not bad enough medical cannabis consumers are criminalized for
making a personal medication decision, now there are kids being told
cannabis has no medicinal value," she complained. "In fact, they're being
told it's extremely dangerous and causes holes in our heads. I wonder how
Bayer feels about their $100-million investment into cannabis medicines?"

She was especially upset at a pamphlet distributed by RCMP officers at a
recent drug symposium in Castlegar.

"This pamphlet -- Marijuana: What's the big deal? -- is full of
misinformation and untruths," St. Jean said. "Drug education must be based
on accurate interpretation of science and there has been no credible or
accurate interpretation of science made in any of the statements or used in
this literature."

Philippe Lucas, who heads the Victoria-based Vancouver Island Compassion
Society and is one of the country's foremost medical marijuana crusaders,
said he does not understand why the RCMP are engaged in such "scare-mongering."

"The biggest disappointment to me was that the RCMP [after the Alberta
shootings] were not calling for harsher sentences for violent crime, they
weren't calling for regulations around gun-ownership," he said.

"It all got directed at cannabis as if the plants had come out and
smothered those four officers. Literally. It's quite puzzling. All of this
just really shows you that given any excuse some people in government are
sitting in wait to bash away at cannabis policy."

Lucas said the RCMP are on a propaganda offensive because the government is
preparing to reintroduce its marijuana decriminalization bill -- which
police across the country generally oppose.

Given the country's marijuana policy is in its infancy, Lucas says the
government and its agencies such as the RCMP should be trying to foster
discussion not suppress it or pollute it with disinformation.

Eric Nash, one of more than 500 federally-licensed growers, agreed. He has
letters of support from all three levels of government and is being
encouraged to expand his Duncan grow operation.

Nash currently cultivates about 50 plants to supply marijuana to a
multiple-sclerosis sufferer in Edmonton and a federal government employee
in Ottawa with a blood disorder.

"Politicians are starting to see the light that we are bringing a product
to patients in need, so why not expand and take it to the next level by
developing the industry?" Nash asked. "That's why the RCMP literature is
distressing."

I agree completely: The Mounties should quit playing politics.