ONLY A GOVERNMENT COULD BE SO INEPT AT GROWING POT

Only a government could spend $5.75 million to grow marijuana, and fail
(Potent pot befuddles Ottawa, April 21). 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 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.

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.