GOVERNMENT FAILURE

RE: "RED Deer reefer madness," April 21. Only a government could spend
$5,750,000 to grow marijuana and fail. Eventually the same government will
hold hearings and issue a report that will explain how it spent $5,750,000
and couldn't grow any marijuana. That report will almost certainly 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 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, Massachusetts

(Such the humanitarian.)