MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM INTENTIONALLY SABOTAGED

As a medical marijuana licence holder who is also married to one, I
was thrilled to see a Global News report about the fiasco at Health
Canada where medical marijuana users were given inferior
government-grown supplies and were thus forced to buy what they
needed on the black market.

Maybe Valerie Lasher, Heath Canada's medical marijuana access
manager, thinks the marijuana offered is "second to none," but I have
had the misfortune of actually trying the product a year ago. It was
called "the second batch" of marijuana from Health Canada's grow, and
I only tried it one time.

It was absolutely the worst marijuana I have ever seen, let alone
tried. It reeked of chemicals, it was brown instead of green, it was
all ground up with seeds and stems in it, it crackled when it burned,
it burned black, tasted awful, hurt my throat, and did very little to
alleviate my symptoms. Just the smell of the open package made my
epileptic wife nauseous, so she did not try it.

Even a first-time buyer on the street would turn his or her nose up
at this bunk-weed. I wouldn't buy it if it only cost a dollar per
pound, and if someone gave me a pound, I'd throw it away.

Besides that, it is already paid for. The taxpayers paid for it, yet
Health Canada has the gall to charge $5 a gram for this junk.

I admit, however, that I do not know what the most recent batch is
like. I have heard that it is "better," but it would have to be 10
times better to even come close to the Compassion Clubs' product.

One thing Health Canada refuses to even acknowledge is the
differences in strains of cannabis. One size does not fit all, and
they apparently don't even know the strain of the plants they grow.

But then, the government did not open this program out of the
goodness of its heart -- it was forced to by a court order. So,
naturally, they are deliberately doing as bad a job as possible.

Russell Barth,

Ottawa