MARIJUANA ACCESS CHANGES WILL HURT THE LAW-ABIDING

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep concerns
about the proposed changes to the medical marijuana access program.

Switching from a system where individuals can grow their own medicine
inexpensively to a system where the medicine must be bought from a
for-profit vendor is puzzling. By doing so the government, in an
attempt to curb this unnamed "criminal element," would be doing
little more then putting a large financial burden on people who have
been diagnosed as extremely ill.

The average user of the medical marijuana program uses between three
and five grams of doctor-prescribed medicine a day; this amount of
medication purchased from a government designated grower would cost
the average patient between $450-$750 a month ($5,400-$9,000
annually). Where are theses medically ill individuals to acquire such
a substantial sum of money?

Also, with the inability for individuals to cheaply produce their own
medicine at home, these people will seek out government subsidized
pharmaceutical medications to fill the void left by the absence of
homegrown medical marijuana. An example of this would be the
pharmaceutical THC Tetrahydrocannabinol, which would cost between
$1,000-$1,500 a month.

Although this figure is greater than the cost of buying medical
marijuana from a government grower, these pharmaceutical alternatives
are highly subsidized by the government agencies.

With such public concern over the economic sustainability of our
health care programs, it would be counter productive to add the
burden of providing a medical marijuana alternative to thousands of Canadians.

One would also be remiss to not look at the threat of non-compliance
to a change in the marijuana access program. Individuals growing
medical marijuana now may simply continue to grow marijuana for their
own use or the use of other medical recipients regardless of the
change in legislation.

If this were to occur, which it certainly would to some degree, the
government would have to step in and do one of two things -- ignore
these individual growers and risk looking ineffectual or step in and
prosecute medial growers.

To propose that these amendments would "keep our children and
communities safe" from an unnamed medical marijuana "criminal
element" is not only misleading but is also inaccurate. The substance
abuse problems in my community are based on the trade in cocaine and
crystal methamphetamine.

The government has simply not made a strong enough case for the
reason to change the medical marijuana access program. Stricter
regulations will only hurt those law-abiding citizens who follow the law.

JAY MACK

Kamloops