PENALIZED FOR BEING SICK

Re: "Trying Medical Marijuana," May 10-16

It is perfectly "legal" to jail or ruin people who use pot--unless
they use it for medicine. But only if they have a license . . . if
they can get one. You see? It is absurd.

What Canadians fail to recognize is that these medical marijuana
"licenses" we are supposed to carry around amount to nothing less than
legislated medical segregation. In Canada! Think about that. No, I
mean really think about it. As federal medical marjiuana license
holders, my wife and I have to carry "special papers" to avoid arrest
because we have a medical condition.

Okay, so, it isn't apartheid or the Holocaust, but this is how stuff
like that starts out: separate us from the rest of the flock so we are
easier to pick off later. Worse yet, sick people have to scrounge for
this medicine, then scrounge a mountain of money to fight for their
own government and police for their rights in court against a giant
with bottomless pockets. So much for Canada being a "just society".

RUSSELL BARTH

Ottawa