WEED OUT THE BAD MEDS, HEALTH CANADA

"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, 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 medicinal dope was supposed
to prevent in the first place.

Each patient's 30 grams of government-sanctioned ganja comes packaged
in a zippy, gold foil pouch that 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 from 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 that 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 fail.

If agriculturally-inclined B.C. teenagers - some of whom are otherwise
averse to doing much in the way of hard work - can produce cannabis
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 need him?