THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT? NOT IN CANADA

If you're fortunate enough to own an Apple iPhone, it seems whatever
your interest, "there's an app for that," as the TV commercial tells
us. "Apps" are software applications, usually small,
specifically-focused, and inexpensive, that run on Apple's iPhone
operating system, a slimmed-down version of Apple's Macintosh OS X
for personal computers and servers.

There are literally thousands of these little programs available on
Apple's online App. Store, one of the newest Apple has approved for
sale being named simply "Cannabis," a US$1.99 iPhone and iPod app by
Los Angeles-based Activists Justifying the Natural Agriculture of
Ganja (AJNAG), who operate the AJNAG.com Website and
MedicalCannabis.org database.

Cannabis the app. is designed to help legal marijuana users quickly
locate the nearest medical cannabis collectives, cooperatives,
doctors, clinics, attorneys, organizations, and other patient
services in the 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana, four
of which - California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island - have
also authorized "dispensaries" to sell medical cannabis. Currently,
legislatures of seven other U.S. states are considering medical
marijuana bills.

Unfortunately, Canada isn't covered by this app, so the few thousand
Canadians licensed by Health Canada to use medical marijuana won't
find the iPhone Cannabis app very useful. However, because of
Canada's perversely absurd and obstructive laws pertaining to medical
marijuana suppliers, it probably wouldn't be a whole lot of help anyway.

Canada's medical marijuana supply regulations are nothing short of
Kafkaseque. In April, the Harper Conservative government grudgingly
responded to a January, 2008 Federal Court ruling striking down the
previous limit of one licensed patient per producer as a violation of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by increasing the number of
medical marijuana users and cynical slap in the face to medical
marijuana advocates, especially those suffering from painful,
debilitating illnesses whose symptoms can be relieved by therapeutic
use of cannabis.

"From one to two patients, that's just insane," Eric Nash, a licensed
Vancouver Island supplier under the Marijuana Medical Access
Regulations commented to the Canadian Press. I couldn't agree more.
The whole obstructive, punitive policy structure regulating medical
marijuana use in Canada is utterly insane, not to mention inhumane.

Nash noted he's had several hundred requests for help from approved
marijuana users, but is legally prevented from supplying them.

The cynicism of the Harperistas' increase to two patients per
producer will hopefully face a court challenge as to its technical
compliance with the Strayer ruling. In any event, it's calculated
insult and injury to thousands of suffering people by a government
making no secret of its perverse desire to phase out personal
marijuana production entirely, notwithstanding that "official"
medical marijuana supplied by Health Canada is reportedly so mediocre
that only about 20 per cent of eligible patients actually use it,
probably suiting the pot-hostile Conservatives just fine.

People struggling with painful, debilitating illness shouldn't have
to battle their government and pay junkie-dealer prices for access to
a safe, effective medicine that provides relief.

One of the few top-tier elected officials who has addressed the
medical marijuana issue with reason and common sense, former Nova
Scotia Tory premier John Hamm, who is perhaps not-coincidentally a
medical doctor, said marijuana should not be regulated differently
than pain-killing medications such as morphine or dilaudid.

"If it has medical benefits and it is apparent now that it does, then
it should be handled the way we handle any other medication that
comes on the market," Hamm observed, adding that people who possess
small amounts of pot shouldn't be classified as criminals. However,
regulation of drugs and criminal law are federal responsibilities, so
Hamm's sensible perspectives didn't change anything.

Evidence, anecdotal and scientific, increasingly backs medical
marijuana advocates' contention that cannabis could be one of the
most powerful, versatile drugs in the healing arsenal, and one of the
safest. Britain's prestigious medical journal, The Lancet wrote that:
"The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health."

Meanwhile GPs are prevented from prescribing cannabis to patients
suffering from chronic pain, but permitted to prescribe much more
harmful and addictive drugs like Oxycodone if a powerful painkiller
is indicated. How insane is that?