INSPECTORS ARE THERE TO COUNT CANNABIS PLANTS, PERIOD

Re: "Inspectors needed now" (July 27). Kerry Thompson is right, both
legal medical cannabis users and their neighbours would benefit
greatly if Health Canada hired inspectors to ensure the safety of
legal medical cannabis cultivation facilities; however, this may be
wishful thinking.

The inspectors' job, unfortunately, has nothing to do with safety:
The inspectors hired by Health Canada are there to count cannabis
plants, period. As has been amply demonstrated throughout the life of
this much-maligned federal program, the government's interest and
actions are focused on the moral and legal regulation of some of our
sickest citizens. The function the inspectors serve is the equivalent
of having your drugstore hire a stranger to come in and rifle through
your medicine cabinet.

Unfortunately, taxpayers are on the hook to pay for these arbitrary
and invasive inspections and for this failed federal medical cannabis
policy and program, and -- as Thompson rightly suggests -- we all
expect and deserve so much better from Health Canada.

Philippe Lucas

Executive director, Vancouver Island Compassion Society

(There are obviously many bugs to work out in this inspection system)