FEDS GIVE NOD TO B.C., BUD

Ya gotta love Canadian politics.

Two things this week. First, you've got the federal government going
into the dope business after an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled
it's not nice to make folks cleared for medical marijuana use buy
their reefer on the street. Nearly 600 chronically-ill Canadians are
approved for medical use of loco weed.

A while ago, the feds started a grow-op in an old mine shaft in Flin
Flon, Manitoba but announced they would only supply dope from the crop
to participants in a clinical research study intended to determine
whether there actually are medical benefits to smoking a doob.
Everybody else had to go see the pusher man.

The Ontario ruling changed all that and now Ottawa is about to start
shipping marijuana to doctors who prescribe pot for their patients at
$5 a gram, about half what the stuff costs on the street.

Health Minister Anne McLellan has got be hoping the Angels don't come
calling to discuss the evils of price cutting.

As usual in this benighted country, nobody's happy.

Doctors don't want to be holding a stash in their offices; they're
afraid that will make them targets for burglars looking to get high.

Outfits like the B.C. Compassion Club, which has provided cut-rate
weed for needy patients for several years, charge the government is
only paying lip service to the Ontario judgment in the knowledge few
doctors are likely to opt into the plan.

McLellan isn't happy because she wants proof getting stoned actually
pays off medically before going all out on liberalized marijuana laws.

The Canadian Alliance, which agrees more study is needed, is attacking
the government for letting a court drive the question instead of
drafting legislation to let parliament decide the issue.

All this bickering and fighting is making me tense. Maybe everybody
needs to toke up and mellow out.

And that brings me to the second bit of political whimsy of the
week.

Paul Martin blew into Vancouver Friday to drum up support for his bid
to become Canada's next emperor.

Now Liberal support in this province can be as hard to find as buried
pirate treasure, since many here are pretty sure Ottawa's map of the
country shows nothing but blank paper west of the Canadian Shield.
Here be monsters, that kind of thing.

Not one to back away from a challenge, Paulie took a shot at making
British Columbians believe they're important by allowing as how
"British Columbia alienation is not a myth."

There ya go - it's official.

He then went on to explain, with glorious patrician convolution, just
how much he feels for us out here and how determined he is to kiss and
make up.

"If at the end of my time as prime minister, if indeed that comes to
pass, that British Columbia alienation at that point is as it is
today, that there is a feeling of disaffection in the country
regardless of whatever successes may occur in that mandate, I will not
believe I will have succeeded."

My head hurts. Hey, Anne, pass the reefer, man.