SPEAKERS TACKLE MEDICAL MARIJUANA ISSUE AT FORUM

Current drug enforcement laws and a government system for the
provision of medical marijuana are failing Canadians, residents heard
from an expert panel last week.

Rielle Capler, of the Centre for Addiction Research B.C., and Tony
Smith, from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, presented information
about medical marijuana, regulations governing it, and problems within
the current legal system to the crowd of over 40 people ranging in age
from 20 through 80 at the Thursday, June 18 meeting. The forum was
hosted by the city at a cost $1,100. Capler spoke about the use of
medical marijuana in treatment of symptoms related to specific
conditions, methods of use and possible harms before delving into the
current regulatory process for legal access to medical marijuana and
the development of compassion clubs as a response to gaps in the
current system.

" The regulations are unconstitutional, and there are too many
barriers," said Capler. "The (marijuana available through the
government program) is marked up 1,500 per cent, they mark it up after
paying for it to be grown, and people who are sick have to pay for it.
Some people pay up to $500 a month for their medicine."

Smith stayed focused on the overall lack of success in the existing
drug enforcement programs. Smith retired after 28 years on the police
force, spending much of his time working in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside. He says that 90 per cent of crime is done by addicts while
only one to three per cent of the population is addicted. With a cost
of over $2.5 billion annually, drug enforcement is still not winning,
said Smith. City Councillor Joy Davies, who initiated the forum says
the fight for change must come from the local level. Davies called on
the community to make their support for change heard at city council
prior to their next meeting, on June 29 where the vote to move a
motion forward to the provincial municipalities meeting in the fall.

"If you, the local population, are sincere that you want the local
politicians - and I believe it has to be the grassroots politicians up
to the provincial and federal - to organize and work together you have
to make your voice heard," said Davies. "Council said they want the
community to tell them that you want this vote to go down to
Vancouver. If you want to get political, this is political."

While people inside continued to ask questions, a Vancouver
businessman Sam Mellace, addressed people outside the doors. Mellace
says that marijuana helped him as he battled leukemia. As a permitted
user, Mellace wants to see legal sources of marijuana which he says
compassion clubs are not. "There is a big difference between
compassion and the law," said Mellace. My idea and concept is to open
up viable medical clinics and also supply the marijuana. If I can get
people to grow the supply wouldn't that be an economic boost?"