Note: Here's the provocative column by Dunford from Sunday referred to in
"A dose of desperation" today (Tue).

STIRRING THE POT FOR PAIN

REEFER MADNESS: Five U.S. states passed propositions a week ago to legalize
the medical use of marijuana.

The gang at NORML -- the pot-on-every-block lobby -- is suddenly awake
again, after years of happy slumber. Maybe they ran out of Oreo cookies.
And Canada's own web news watcher, Pierre Bourque (www. bourque.org), flags
a Montreal weekly's claim that Joe Clark is the Canadian politician most
friendly to legalizing marijuana. Who knew? He's Joe Blow. Hey, anything
for the youth vote.

I'm no smoker. Never have been. A pox on Joe Camel and Joe Pothead, his
evil twin. Bill Clinton never inhaled? Never did weed with that woman? Me
neither! In fact, rum is my drug of choice and I use it in moderation,
thank you very much -- but never without Diet Coke. I am the man least
likely to be affected by any change in Canada's drug laws. When suspicious
snooper planes buzz low over rural Ontario late each summer, searching for
the dreaded home-grown pot crop with infrared scopes, I pretend they are
just creaky Canadian Forces choppers, trying to make it back to Trenton.
More ice in that drink? A toast to busted Wilno hippies.

You say pot, I think: Fritz the Cat. Easy Rider. Keep on truckin'. Peace,
man. Paisley amoebas. Lava lamps. George Carlin, the hippie dippy
weatherman. Radio WINO. Rock and roll. Cheech and Chong. The Maharishi. My
contact with marijuana is all cultural: Second and third-hand, thru music,
movies, the drug artifacts of the last two decades. At that distance, it
seems pretty benign.

But ya know, Fritz, Cheech, the Doobie Brothers, they're ready for the
pension pretty soon. All a bit long in the tooth. I wish 'em good health.
Truth is, look beautiful and die young isn't gonna work for a lot of these
greybeards. The clock is ticking, boomers. For some, the passage out of
this world is gonna be hard and long. Cruel and taxing. It's gonna hurt. Ya
know that Eagles song? "Come on bay-bee, don't say may-be ... I gotta know
if your sweet love is gonna save me ..." Well, it may take more than that.

Since change is generational, it's easy to see why the medical use of
marijuana proposition is quietly appearing on ballots. The drug is
acknowledged to be effective against nausea, the sturm and drang of
chemotherapy and cancer. It eases the way outta here. Do you think the
voting Boomer generation -- as they watch their parents die -- is gonna
make that exit journey more difficult? Or easier? It seems like a no
brainer. When a dozen, two dozen U.S. states give the nod to medicinal pot
on ballots, the topic reaches the national agenda. Is it on the radar scope
in Canada?

You can't buy hospital grade Demerol at a corner store, and I assume
marijuana won't be next to the gum at the checkout either. Legalization
will certainly have an effect ...

- - Doctors will over-prescribe marijuana, just as they now over-prescribe
Prozac, Valium, Ritalin and Viagra. You want it? You got it. Next.

- - Pharmaceutical houses will make monstrous profits in the controlled
marijuana market, just as they do in every drug area. Ka-ching.

- - Marijuana will continue to be peddled on the street, along with Qualudes,
uppers, downers, poppers, reds and every variety of supposed prescription
drug. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

To drag our feet on the medical use of marijuana is to deny the drug to
about the only group in society who can't score a deal. When you're on your
deathbed, you ain't gonna be getting up to boogie on down to the nearest
school yard in your slippers. Marijuana prohibition has been a social and
legal failure. To prohibit the medical use of marijuana is far worse.

Yeah, I saw Reefer Madness, the classic, hysterical anti-pot flick.
Teenagers smoked dope and turned into werewolves and worse. Never saw one
in my neighbourhood. But are you looking for true reefer madness? Try the
idea of withholding a drug from the terminally ill, a substance that could
actually ease their passage. That's beyond crazy. It's moral sadism.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski