FED'S MEDICAL POT PLAN GOES UP IN SMOKE

"Hello. Bonjour. Welcome to Health Canada's customer service and complaint
line. This is Dave speaking. How can I help you?"

"Uh... Yeah, man. This is Jimmy. I've got a problem with my medication. I
suffer from... um... glaucoma. Yeah, that's it."

"Well, let's see what we can do to help. What exactly is the problem?"

"It's about this new dope you guys sent me, Dave. It tastes terrible and it
ain't even getting me high, dude."

"The planned parameters of our medicinal marijuana implementation program
aren't intended to facilitate the enhancement of euphorical side-effects,
sir, but to ameliorate some of the more unpleasant symptoms of
heredity-based or acquired illnesses and promote satisfactory wellness
outcomes for all Canadians."

"Huh?"

"It's not supposed to get you wired. It's supposed to make your eyes feel
better."

"Well, all I know is that when Steve next door was helping me get my...
um... medication, I was feelin' no pain at all. But this stuff sucks big
time. Can't you hook me up with something better?"

"Health Canada's official supplier has produced this medicinal product
using the most stringent and tightly monitored quality control methods
available."

"But it tastes like bird poop. I want my money back, Dave."

"Sorry, Dave's not here."

There are two types of projects in this world: those that benefit from the
guidance, experience and resources that big government can provide and
those that are best left alone so that free market forces in the private
sector can deliver optimum results to end users.

The cultivation of marijuana (dope, tea, Mary Jane, pot, reefer, weed -
whatever term your generation grew up with) apparently falls into the
latter category.

When Health Canada began distributing its very own, much-ballyhooed version
of "homegrown" this month, the calls of outrage from disappointed medical
marijuana users could be heard from coast to coast. The verdict of
"disgusting" was heard from one of the 10 patients now registered to buy
dope from the government. The phrase "unsuitable for human consumption" was
used by another.

Some of the program's first guinea pigs even said that smoking the stuff
made them feel nauseous - a problem that the medicinal dope was supposed to
prevent in the first place.

Each patient's 30 grams of government-sanctioned marijuana comes packaged
in a zippy, gold foil pouch. It carries a boring, generic-looking label
bearing the words "DRIED MARIHUANA", plus a warning that reads "Keep out of
reach of children" and a cheerful little red maple leaf. The overall
appearance of the new-style "baggie" is oddly reminiscent of those
tasteless packages of dehydrated food that rookie campers buy by the
cartload every summer at Mountain Equipment Co-op.

The dope that Prairie Plant Systems has been growing (under tight security
in a disused Manitoba mine tunnel and at a cost of some $5.75 million to
date) reportedly is so lacking in potency that smokers who are accustomed
to the venerable "B.C. Bud" brand have been forced to smoke buckets of the
woody, sawdust-like stuff to achieve even the slightest buzz - or to get
any relief for their original discomfort.

A patients' rights advocacy group called Canadians for Safe Access has now
also entered the fray, calling for better and safer supplies of ye ol' weed.

That organization has also claimed that the marijuana supplied by the feds
contains traces of arsenic and lead - unwelcome contaminants in anyone's book.

It's not exactly the sort of reception that Health Canada had been hoping
its new "wonder drug" would receive.

Now, I don't smoke pot (or use any illicit drug, for that matter), but when
this little venture was announced a year or two ago, even I immediately
recognized that it was doomed to failure.

If agriculturally-inclined B.C. teenagers - some of whom are otherwise
averse to doing much in the way of hard work - can produce cannabis in
their backyards or basements that is the envy of the rest of the
pot-growing world, one has to wonder why federal government officials
carrying matching briefcases thought they could do any better.

Who can say what the long-term solution to this problem will be? Is
medicinal marijuana really needed? If it is, shouldn't patients be entitled
to a safe, reliable and effective source of "medicine"?

However, private marijuana growers are clearly breaking anti-drug laws as
they are now written, so it's a pretty good bet that the Canadian
government will remain in the drug-dealing business for the foreseeable
future - or at least until the clouds of smoke clear from the offices of
the decision-makers at Health Canada.

Man. Where's Dave when you really need him?