IS OUR GOVERNMENT POTTY?

It is a comical conundrum for a country that's had its head in the sand over
drug laws for years - how to make a fake joint good enough to fool
participants in medical marijuana clinical trials.

Even one of the researchers who will be organizing the trials on the
therapeutic value of pot admits it's going to be a sticky problem.

"We may have to use the .... clinical trial for people who are just naive,"
James Austin said Wednesday after federal Health Minister Allan Rock
announced that Health Canada plans to spend millions of dollars on the study.

As any researcher worth his or her grant knows, the best experiments use
what's known as double-blind tests - giving one group the real thing and the
other a placebo.

So half of the 250 patients to be selected for the trials will get to smoke
pot (bought from U.S. and British companies) and the other half will smoke,
well, who knows?

Catnip, perhaps? Oregano? Or a select blend of secret herbs and spices
concocted in a Health Canada kitchen? (Could this be the beginning of a
made-in-Canada, government-approved designer drug?)

And where will they find these "naive" participants - those who have never
had a toke in their lives or at least smelled the sweet, distinctive aroma
of marijuana at a party or a concert?

I figure Ottawa will have to advertise for senior citizens or raid a nunnery
to make up its placebo test group.

Most people who have come of age since the '60s (like lots of our
politicians) have likely tried pot at one time or another and a few of them
have even admitted it.

Like Bill Clinton who admitted a few years ago that he'd used marijuana but
didn't inhale (yeah, right).

Or Ralph Klein who also conceded he'd smoked pot but said it made him
paranoid. For every politician who's admitted trying the demon weed and for
every Canadian who's been busted for pot possession, there are plenty of
others who are too embarrassed to fess up or have never been caught.

Hello, out there. What's the big deal? It's marijuana we're talking about.
I've covered lots of trials over the years and can assure you marijuana
doesn't make people commit rape, assault or murder. Another mind-altering
substance - a legal one - prompts that sort of behaviour.

People stoned on pot are more likely to lie on the couch flipping through
sitcoms, if they can bother reaching for the remote, and scarfing large bags
of potato chips.

And as the Ontario Court of Appeal heard this week in a constitutional
challenge of Canada's marijuana law, pot isn't highly addictive, toxic or a
"gateway" to harder drugs.

If Ottawa wants to conduct clinical trials on the medicinal value of pot,
fine. The more we know about its therapeutic properties the better. But in
the meantime, Ottawa ought to get off its butt and decriminalize marijuana.
It shouldn't be a criminal offence to possess or cultivate pot for personal use.

In case you're wondering, I don't do drugs. I tried pot but hated the
floating feeling of disconnectedness that it produced. My vice is chocolate
truffles.

My outrage, you see, is fuelled by frustration over the millions of dollars
spent on lengthy undercover drug operations, busts, trials and appeals when
kids are going hungry and don't have proper winter coats, troubled teens
want more counselling services, ailing seniors need more publicly funded
home care and there isn't enough low-income housing.

Cannabis offences make up 72% of all drug crimes. Think of what we could do
with all the money wasted on those criminal proceedings. Now, get angry.