BE SENSIBLE ABOUT POT

The plight of James Cruickshank and his family shows again how harmful
Canada's official stance on marijuana is - and how important it is that
Ottawa come to its senses quickly to prevent more suffering.

The Sault Ste. Marie resident was "outed" late last year when he and
two other people were charged with possession of marijuana and
possession for the purpose of trafficking. His pending court
appearance just adds to the torment he has been plagued with for 15
years, since he was injured in a fall at a construction site.

He says he was taking multiple prescriptions for pharmaceuticals to
help him cope with the pain, but it was marijuana that made the
difference. It also reportedly helped him sleep and deal with stress.

Marijuana has been touted as an aid in living with everything from
multiple sclerosis to cancer, and the courts have pressured Health
Canada to ease restrictions for medicinal use even though many
authorities say they would prefer to wait until there are
more-thorough studies about the drug.

Advocates such as the Sault's Rob Waddell argue that drug companies
see so little opportunity for profit with a substance so cheap and
easy to produce as marijuana that they won't invest in such studies.

So people who say pot helps them so much, like Cruickshank, have to
hope they will win a special exemption. First, they need to have a
physician - and for hundreds of people in the Sault and Algoma that's
a dim hope - and then they have to hope their doctor is one of the few
who will actually OK marijuana use.

Dr. Frances Leung, a Toronto rheumatologist who visits the Sault
regularly in her role of controlling pain, says the medical community
is "very, very cautious" about marijuana just as it is with narcotics
in general.

Political pressure is the main impediment to a rational approach
towards marijuana on all levels, and most of that pressure comes from
the United States.

That was acknowledged this month by Conservative leadership candidate
Belinda Stronach, who said she was against liberalizing pot use
because it would complicate border crossings for Canadians and our
goods. And this from an admitted former user. (She says she can't
recall whether she inhaled, but since impaired memory is reputedly one
of the effects we can draw our own conclusions.)

At about the same time, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci was
also warning that reduced pot possession penalties could make
Canadians, especially young Canadians, the objects of greater official
interest at the border.

The real reason that pot attracts so much attention is money. On one
hand, we have criminals who are able to get rich off the avails much
as Al Capone and his cronies did with alcohol when it was prohibitted.
On the other, we have law-enforcement officials whose budgets and
careers depend on a continued vigorous war on pot.

That's what leads to excesses such as about 100 officers who raided a
former brewery in Barrie to break up a huge marijuana grow operation.
It was almost as big a waste of professional police as the despicable
raid on Ottawa reporter Juliet O'Neill's home by 10 RCMP officers
looking for the source of an information leak last week.

The sooner Canada comes to its senses and not only decriminalizes
marijuana, but sells it as a controlled substance and reaps the
profits for fighting real crime rather than letting criminals get
rich, the sooner we will all be better off.

Especially people who want it for health reasons.