Part Iv Of A Five-Part Series On The Medical Use Of Marijuana

DARE OFFICER WARY OF LEGALIZING MARIJUANA USE

Although fewer than 3,000 Canadians are licensed to use medical
marijuana, it's estimated that between 400,000 and one million people
in the country use cannabis as medication. The following is the fourth
in a series of articles about the use of marijuana to treat medical
conditions.

Peterborough County - When Peterborough County OPP Const. Eric Dawson
walks into a classroom full of Grade 6 students, he sees a room full
of young people whose full potential will unfold as they become
teenagers and then adults.

But if young people start taking drugs they could be diverted from a
path that leads to a bright, healthful future, says the former drug
squad member who is now a youth officer and Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program teacher.

When Dawson brings the DARE program into local Grade 6 classrooms, he
tells students what they need to know to make informed and wise
decisions when they are at some point confronted with a range of
illicit drugs, including cocaine, crack, heroine, crystal meth and
ecstasy. Dawson also advises students not to smoke cannabis, a plant
more commonly known as marijuana, and the illegal drug that attracts
the most debate and controversy. A growing number of Canadians would
like to see marijuana legalized, or at the very least
decriminalized.

An Angus Reid Strategies poll conducted in May, 2008 showed that 53
per cent of adults believe the consumption of marijuana should be
allowed in Canada. Among them are people like former corrections
officer Alison Myrden and Trent Hills resident Wendal Grant (not his
real name), who are both licensed by the Canadian government to
consume marijuana for medical purposes, Myrden for her multiple
sclerosis, Grant for his Crohn's disease.

They argue that legalizing marijuana would remove the stigma attached
to the drug and its consumption, smoothing the way for doctors worried
about public opinion to consider cannabis as a treatment for some of
their patients. Legalization and regulation would also take the drug
out of the control of criminal gangs and street dealers and do more to
prevent kids from obtaining and using the substance, they say.

For Myrden, legalization would lead to improved access to the specific
strains of marijuana she needs to effectively control her MS and
reduce the pain of a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, or tic
douloureux. "I'm stuck in the street market when I can't find the
strain I need for the violent pain in my face," she said.

The particular strain Myrden needs even has a name - William's Wonder.
And it is considered "one of the top strains in the world," she said,
describing its effectiveness as a pain killer. "When I smoked it, the
pain in my face was gone within 10 minutes."

But like many other strains of marijuana, it is difficult to find, and
can't be obtained through the Health Canada Medical Marijuana program.
That leaves Myrden and others to the mercy of street dealers, who take
advantage of their need for certain kinds of marijuana. "They know
they can make money off us," she said.

In a recent press release, former Marijuana Party of Canada candidate
Russell Barth, a member of Patients Against Ignorance and
Discrimination on Cannabis, said "having a marijuana license does not
guarantee a consistent or reliable supply." He said many federally
licensed medical marijuana users are forced to rely on compassion
clubs and "mom-and-pop" growers as backup to what he calls "the
onerous and dysfunctional Health Canada regulations."

Const. Dawson knows all about the government's medical marijuana
program, and recognizes the card that shows a person has the right to
consume cannabis without fear of arrest and prosecution. And he has no
problem with the program, which was created as the result of a court
decision.

"That's completely out of the realm of what I do as a police officer,"
he told The CommunityPress. "These people are very, very sick. How
somebody deals with their sickness, that's between them and their
health professionals. It's nothing to do with us, that's why they have
those licences. If that's the way they want to deal with it, it's
entirely their own choice."

However, accepting that some people use marijuana to relieve the pain,
nausea and othersymptoms of their illnesses doesn't mean he is in
favour of legalizing the drug, which he maintains is a threat to
health. Marijuana, he said, contains cancer-causing agents. Believing
the plant is benign, does not make it so, said Dawson.

"The biggest thing I hear in the schools is misinformation. I run into
both children and adults who believe they can smoke marijuana and it
will not cause cancer, or that they can concentrate better when they
are stoned. They think that somehow this is a safe smoke, but it's not
safe."

And to start smoking cannabis at a young age can have a devastating
impact on developing bodies and minds, he said, stressing that the
DARE program doesn't attempt to scare kids with the threat of being
stopped by the police. Instead, the message is about health and
thinking about the future.

"I tell them, 'you're young, you like sports, and this is going to
hurt you, this is going to make you not as good, simple as that.'"

Dawson said Grade 6 children are capable of asking some hard questions
about drugs, and they want to hear details. So he tells them that
drugs are broadly classified as stimulants, depressants or
hallucinogens. Nicotine and cocaine are examples of stimulants, and
alcohol is a depressant. Marijuana, Dawson said, is classified as an
hallucinogen, which means it alters perception to the point that users
can experience feelings of paranoia and "actually have a hard time
with reality."

It is this aspect of marijuana that concerns him above all others. "I
can tell you that that's the thing that would make me, as a police
officer, be wary of its legalization," he said.

An alternative would be to decriminalize cannabis, which essentially
means that people found with small amounts of marijuana would be
fined, not charged with an indictable crime. It's a concept that
police could work with, especially since it would free up valuable
time spent doing paperwork for very minimal results.

"If it was just a ticket for small amounts of marijuana, I don't think
you'd have a big argument in the police community, simple as that,"
Dawson said.

However, proposed bills to decriminalize cannabis and introduce a
framework of fines for possession of small amounts of the drug have
died on the floor of the House of Commons. "It's obviously not the
will of the government to deal with the issue right now," Dawson observed.

Barney Savage, director of policy for the Centre For Addiction and
Mental Health in Toronto, said there are a number of options for
confronting cannabis use that don't involve the criminal justice
system, and one of them would be a system of fines.

Another "huge part of the solution" involves educating people of all
ages, especially young people, about the consequences of using drugs,
including prescription drugs, Savage said.

"So, in the same way we teach young people about the responsible use
of alcohol and tobacco, we should be speaking to young people about
the consequences of cannabis use."

And there are consequences, he said, stressing that cannabis "is not a
benign drug." However, there are also "significant health
consequences" to many legal substances, he said. And 69 per cent of
health care costs in Canada attributable to drug use are related to
smoking tobacco. Alcohol accounts for 28 per cent of drug-related
health care costs, but only 0.5 per cent can be attributed to
marijuana use.

Savage said the government and Canadians must ask one essential
question: "What do we accomplish by using the Criminal Code as a way
of controlling cannabis use?"

And although marijuana is not a benign substance, the answer is that
the Criminal Code is not the best way to deal with its use, especially
when 14 per cent of Canadians say they have used cannabis over the
past year.

"Our position is that the criminal justice system is not the
appropriate mechanism for controlling the use of cannabis," he said.
"We're not convinced at all that we're getting healthier people by
putting it in the Criminal Code and spending $200 million a year
enforcing it."

Nor is criminalizing marijuana use particularly effective, Savage
said, noting that the high rate of criminal convictions for cannabis
use in the United States has not resulted in the lowest percentages of
people using the drug. Conversely, countries that have a lower rate of
criminal convictions often have a lower rate of marijuana use, he said.

"The evidence suggests that there are ways the government could place
its resources and priorities if we are interested in contributing to
public health."

There is also the question of diverting police resources from other,
arguably more essential public safety activities, Savage said. "So we
could ask how much public safety we are getting. We certainly have to
ask that as a society."

Alison Myrden would not disagree. In addition to being a licensed
medical marijuana user, the retired corrections officer, now living in
Burlington, is a member of and public speaker for LEAP (Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition), an international organization
comprising both retired and active law enforcement officers that
promotes the regulated legislation of drugs. LEAP believes the war
against drugs is ineffective, costly and ultimately harmful, and
supports the legalization of cannabis "to get the stuff off the street
and get it away from the criminals and controlled and regulated and
taxed."

Taking marijuana off the streets would also help get the drug away
from kids, who Myrden agrees, shouldn't be smoking pot. But right now
a kid on the street has an easier time obtaining marijuana than a
licensed medical user, she said.

Myrden said marijuana's classification as an hallucinogen is an
obstacle to legalization. "That's ridiculous," she said. "I've never
hallucinated, and I've never heard of anyone who has
hallucinated."

Nor does marijuana cause cancer; quite the opposite, she argued.
"Marijuana fights cancer. There have been numerous studies showing it
fights cancer," she said.

In Boston, associate professor emeritus of psychiatry Dr. Lester
Grinspoon says the toxicity levels of marijuana are so negligible that
the harm ratio of the drug has never been determined. "You can die of
alcohol poisoning, but you can't die of an overdose from smoking
cannabis," he said in a phone interview with The Community Press.
"There has never been a death from it. You can't kill a person from an
overdose of marijuana, it can't be done."

When Grinspoon wrote his book "Marijuana Reconsidered" in 1971, he
predicted that prohibition would be ended within 10 years. He was
disappointed his prediction did not come true, but is convinced the
time frame has merely been extended.

"I see many people are learning about this, especially through medical
marijuana, because they see a parent, or a friend using it
medicinally, and they say to themselves for the first time, 'well,
what is all the fuss about? Why should this be prohibited? She uses
this for her MS and not only does she not have spasms anymore, she's
in a good mood.'"

The way to approach marijuana is to regulate it in the same way
alcohol is regulated, Grinspoon said, noting that in the United States
a store owner who sells alcohol to underage users risks losing both
his licence and his livelihood.

Unfortunately, there are many people who retain "a vested interest" in
keeping prohibition in place. The outcome of this prohibition of
marijuana can be seen in the lives of the millions of people in the
United States who have had their aspirations and careers blighted as a
result of what are often minor possession charges, Grinspoon said.

"But what is the government to do now, say 'we're wrong and we
apologize?' Look how long it took the US government to apologize to
Japanese-American citizens for their treatment during the war.
Governments don't like to admit they are wrong."

In Burlington, Myrden is optimistic the 30-year fight to legalize
marijuana in Canada will be successful.

"I know it will. I'm just one of thousands of people who work hard
every day to get it legalized and regulated. Canada is a very
progressive country, so I think we do have a chance."

Quote in middle of article

"There has never been a death from it. You can't kill a person from an
overdose of marijuana, it can't be done."

Dr. Lester Grinspoon