MEDICINAL MARIJUANA PROMISE DOUBTED

Re: Our pot's too potent (April 21). Only a government could spend $5.75
million to grow marijuana, and fail.

Eventually the same government will hold hearings and issue a report that
will explain how it spent $5.75 million and couldn't grow any marijuana.
That report almost certainly will cost taxpayers at least $500,000.

To be fair, the contractors have managed to grow some marijuana, but the
government undertook the project to fulfil a promise to provide marijuana
to the desperately and terminally ill, chief among them cancer chemotherapy
and AIDS patients.

And this has yet to happen -- not one single appetite-stimulating puff for
one single, wasting patient, no matter how excruciating and
life-threatening his or her medical condition.

And this will never happen, because this is a promise the government never
intended to honour.

May I offer my services? I can fail to honour a humanitarian, merciful
promise far more cheaply. For a mere $1 million, I will not provide
marijuana to desperately ill and suffering Canadians.

ROBERT MERKIN

Northampton, Mass.