POT DISCUSSION SORELY NEEDED

An Ontario court ruling last month should be seen as an attempt to
advance the discussion about public policy on medical marijuana.

The ruling, out of a constitutional challenge, determined that the
federal regulations forcing patients to go through medical doctors to
access medical marijuana, made obtaining it unfairly onerous.

The court, which in essence echoed what many medical marijuana
advocates have been saying for years, gave the government 90 days to
fix the regulations with new legislation.

Instead, Ottawa quickly appealed the ruling, which ironically came in
the midst of a federal election campaign that eventually saw a
right-wing majority government elected.

This is the same Tory government that has for years touted an
expensive and misguided 'tough on crime' agenda, based largely on
inflated and factually challenged statistics, that includes mandatory
minimum jail sentences for people caught in possession of a few joints.

Although the Ontario ruling deals specifically with medical access to
marijuana, the issue is intrinsically tied to the
criminalization/decriminalization
issue.

Regardless of where Canadians stand on medical marijuana and the
decriminalization of pot in general, this latest round of legal
wrangling should reinvigorate the discussion, both in the legal and
general public realms, about where we as a country stand on pot.

It's widely agreed that the prohibitionist 'war on drugs' is an
astronomically expensive failure, at least as it relates to marijuana.

What's most needed now is a frank and intelligent conversation about
where to go next. The Ontario ruling must be seen as the opening remark.