MEDICINAL POT LAWS NEEDED TO BE CHANGED

Canada is not going to descend into a lawless and reckless state if
sick people are given adequate access to medical marijuana.

It is now without question that pot is beneficial for a host of
illnesses, from glaucoma to multiple sclerosis, as well as relieving
the effects of chemotherapy. The government may acknowledge this, but
their actions to see that those in need can get access to pot are dismal.

Government-approved pot is so low in potency it is pretty much useless
for someone using it for relief from pain or other symptoms.

It's understandable that so few people would jump through the legal
hoops set by Health Canada to be severely limited to growing small
amounts of low-grade pot. And even having a Health Canada licence is
no guarantee that police won't come knocking, either politely or by
kicking down the door.

The Health Canada rules are also rather convoluted, and many people
who thought they were abiding by them have ended up before the courts
facing charges of cultivating a controlled substance, if not
possession for the purpose of trafficking.

The ruling of Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg calls on Health Canada
to make serious changes. The ruling states that "compassion clubs,"
which have sprung up around the country, including here in Nanaimo,
should be able to grow and provide pot to their clients.

Obviously the government's effort to monopolize or control production
of medicinal pot has failed. Governments are dismal at doing much more
than regulating and taxing. So why didn't they do that with medicinal
pot from the start?

Likely they were concerned about a crossover into recreational pot use
and Health Canada saw their rules as a means to prevent that from
happening. If they thought it was going to open the door to
recreational use, they badly misunderstood the availability of pot in
this country.

Organized crime has that market cornered as they finance other
criminal activities. Crime gangs could hardly sell enough medicinal
pot to afford a weekend at Whistler. And those who want recreational
pot are hardly about to be running to friends and family suffering
from terminal illness.

If they fear that compassion clubs could serve as a cover for
organized crime, then they are severely incompetent. A government that
can enforce current tobacco legislation can enforce new pot
regulations. It is highly illegal to grow, refine and sell tobacco,
and the RCMP has a whole unit devoted to pursuing scofflaws who dare
grow tobacco. The same goes for those who play poker for money and do
not abide by various legislative requirements.

While pot can serve as a gateway drug for those disposed to addiction,
for millions of others it is, for the most part, harmless. We have
another drug that does a lot more damage -- alcohol.

Justice Koenigsberg's decision re-opens the question about
decriminalizing or legalizing pot. would certainly solve the medicinal
pot problem. Legalizing it would put the government in a position to
tax it. It's at least time the government gave up controlling the
production of medicinal pot.

And if new regulations allow compassion clubs to produce and
distribute pot, with some crossover into recreational use, that is a
small price to pay.

The real problem here is not that there is an inability to control
pot, but that healthy people use it as an anodyne in the same way
others abuse alcohol.

Somewhere between the real need for pot use by ill people and its
abuse by stoners is a balance. Until we have a responsible society
where pot and booze are not abused, the government is going to have to
find a way to provide it to one and either prevent or control it for
the other.

No reasonable person still looks upon pot as some great evil. It's
time our government's policies came in line with public sentiment.