OAKVILLE NDP CANDIDATE OFFENDED BY COVERAGE

I would like to respond to reporter Craig MacBride's story NDP have high
hopes in the Oakville Beaver, Wednesday, May 5. The first paragraph of the
story mentions immediately that I had been physically ill before and after
winning my nomination.

This is true.

May I remind Mr. MacBride that I am one of the most ill people in this
country because of the excruciating pain I suffer in my face every day, and
that I don't have a constant steady supply of cannabis which is imperative
to my functioning as a normal human being.

Had I not continued to smoke my medicine that evening I would not have been
able to respond to much, the other choice of which is having to ultimately
live in a pharmaceutical haze unless otherwise supplied by my friends and
family with a continuous source of cannabis.

As a member of a prestigious Law Enforcement Organization called LEAP,
being a Federal Medical Marijuana Exemptee and having spent 10 years in
Correctional Facilities around Ontario, I would have thought Mr. MacBride
would have understood my expertise in this and not made light of this very
serious issue the way he did.

I do not wish to make this about marijuana.

Would Mr. MacBride focus on a candidate with cancer so intently, or
diabetes? What if I had to inject my medicine to feel better, would this
have been more acceptable to Mr. MacBride?

This is about my running for Federal Office in the next election and making
a difference with the New Democratic Party of Canada, which I will.

Would Mr. MacBride be so insensitive to question someone who is on
chemotherapy to battle cancer, why they are vomiting continuously while
trying to run their campaign? I believe people would call that person
courageous.

I am guessing Mr. MacBride, that you have never watched your loved ones
suffer from relentless and debilitating disease and then denied them
understanding and empathy for their medicine with a stroke of your pen as
you have done with me.

I would have thought that for your expertise you would have written a
better story on a woman who can seemingly handle many tasks without serious
issue and do so without turning back. That would have been my focus.

The NDP is an incredible political organization because it is for the people.

I can see that you are not NDP, your penmanship disclosed that.

ALISON MYRDEN, NDP CANDIDATE, OAKVILLE RIDING

Ed. Note: The intent of the story was never to make light of Alison
Myrden's illness. The angle of the story was chosen to highlight the
seriousness of her illness to explain one of the main thrusts of her
campaign -- to improve government legislation for the accessibility of the
proper strains of marijuana for federal medical marijuana exemptees.

For the record, Craig MacBride did not lurk in the parking lot. He was told
this information by the candidate, and he was not late for the meeting.