TIME TO GET OFF THE POT

If someone can explain to us the magical mystery tour that passes for
Ottawa's marijuana policy these days, we'd love to hear it.

On the one hand, with much silly nudging and winking -- including lame
jokes by Prime Minister Jean Chretien -- the Liberals are moving to
decriminalize pot. But on the other, Health Minister Anne McLellan had to
be dragged kicking and screaming by the courts into supplying pot to those
who need it for medical reasons.

What's created is an impression of a government working to make marijuana
more accessible to everyone -- the practical effect of decriminalization --
except for those who need it.

This week, forced by a court deadline it knew was coming for months, Ottawa
rushed in a program to supply marijuana for medical purposes that has
angered everyone with a stake in it.

Patients are upset the program could be revoked within months if the feds
win an appeal of the court decision. (Ottawa says it's not convinced
marijuana has any medicinal value and is planning clinical trials this winter.)

The Canadian Medical Association is angry because the government will
deliver pot directly to doctors to supply to some of the 582 patients now
legally entitled to use it.

It says many doctors aren't convinced of marijuana's therapeutic value,
don't want to give out a drug that hasn't been federally approved and could
conceivably do harm and don't want criminals breaking into their offices in
search of marijuana.

Police say the $5/gram the feds are going to charge patients for marijuana
means some people will try to abuse the system to get cheap pot.

And while Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter has now promised to
intervene, the RCMP complained the health ministry hasn't given it the
names of the 413 patients entitled to grow their own pot, meaning the
police could unknowingly bust down the doors of a legal growing operation.

Meanwhile, some police forces (Winnipeg not being among them) have given up
enforcing the law on simple possession, until that law is clarified.

All in all, it's a huge mess created by a government that, on marijuana,
continues to suck and blow at the same time.