MEDICINAL MARIJUANA ACTIVIST BRINGS FIGHT TO LEGALIZE DRUGS TO SACKVILLE

A former corrections officer and one of Canada's most outspoken medicinal
marijuana activists says that calls for tougher drug sentencing following
the recent slayings of the four RCMP officers in northern Alberta is not the
answer.

"It angers me that government uses this as an outlet" says Alison Myrden,
who spoke at Mount Allison University this past week on behalf of Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). "This was not about marijuana at
all. This was about stolen car parts. This was about a very deranged man
who needed help."

Myrden, who has a medical marijuana exemption for Multiple Sclerosis and Tic
Dolloureux, says that the federal government and others who are calling for
a drug crackdown in the aftermath of the shootings are getting caught up in
the hysteria.

"This was an issue with the RCMP that, as far as I am concerned, they should
have been a little less ready to jump and a little less hysterical."

Myrden believes that prohibition and the so-called 'war on drugs' has only
served to fuel the violence and that it could end if drugs were legalized.

"We need to legalize, regulate and tax all drugs in this country" she says.
"That's the only way to keep them away from our children."

LEAP, founded in 2002, is made up of current and former members of law
enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have failed in their
intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction,
juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and
the internal sale and use of drugs.

In her new role as Canada's leading woman LEAP speaker, Myrden believes
that regulating drug use will lead to fewer overdoses and fewer deaths.

"People are going to get drugs whether we legalize them or not. I would
just rather they be in a safer forum."

She compares the current situation with the 1930's when Al Capone and his
crew were running the underground liquor market during prohibition.
Violence was commonplace, but the bootleggers' empires crumbled soon after
prohibition ended.

"As soon as it came out of the black market, liquor was regulated, taxed and
it became a completely different picture", she says. "All of a sudden,
people were using it appropriately and children weren't getting their hands
on it."

Myrden was diagnosed with chronic progressive Multiple Sclerosis and began
battling Tic Dolloureux, an excruciating facial pain, more than 12 years
ago.

In 1995, she was prescribed cannabis for pain relief after Doctor supervised
legal cocaine and heroin therapy, were found to be insufficient.

Cannabis, however, gave her the immediate relief of which the other
medications were not capable.

"It alleviates it (the pain)," she explains.

When her doctors and pain specialists first mentioned using marijuana for
her pain, she says she brushed it off because she was in law enforcement.
"It wasn't something that was legal. It wasn't something that I was really
willing to give up my career to do."

When she smoked her first joint, however, she says she had immediate relief.

"It was miraculous. Within 10 minutes I had no pain in my face."

In March of 2000 she received one of the first ministerial exemptions under
Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to be legally able to
smoke, possess and grow marijuana for medicine.

However, her government paperwork did not (and could not) include directions
to a pharmacy stocking cannabis.

Since then, she has been getting her marijuana from the black market and at
compassion centers.

"Until I found things like marijuana, I never had a life."

When she doesn't smoke marijuana, she takes 32 pills a day and 2000 mg of
morphine.

"There is nothing else for me. I have too many problems with the MS," she
says.

The marijuana not only helps alleviate pain, she insists it has given her
relief from bladder problems and visual disturbances and it has allowed her
better mobility.

"I shouldn't even be walking right now," she says of her condition which has
been termed chronic progressive MS.

The 12 to 20 ounces she is legally allowed to consume per month costs less
that any other pharmaceuticals she takes.

"The other drugs I take can add up to thousands of dollars before I know
it," says Myrden. "And that's a burden on Society, whereas the marijuana
is a burden on my family."

At 41, Myrden has been retired from corrections for 10 years and has been
publically advocating the legalization of drugs for the past six years.

Her mother Joyce Myrden, who made the trip to Sackville with her daughter,
says she is in full support of Alison's cause.

"I never had anything to do with drugs in my life. I wasn't even aware of
what marijuana smelled like," Joyce explains.

"But when Alison discovered marijuana, I was the one who had to drive her
around to pick it up at these various black market places. And I was the
one who paid for it. I can see what it does for her and that's good enough
for me. I can see the good it does."

Myrden says she doesn't believe that legalization of drugs should be a
closed door issue anymore.

"People need to be educated" she says noting that marijuana is one of the
least harmful drugs on the market and is less harmful and addictive than
caffeine, tobacco and alcohol.

"This has to be resolved now. We can't be a political football anymore."

"As a sick person, I don't want to but my medicine from the street." she
adds.

Myrden says that 80 per cent of correction officers current and former, are
in support of legalization.

"They do not want to be arresting people for something that is hurting no
one." she says. It's a waste of time. They need to be out catching real
criminals."