DOING THE FLIN FLON FLIP-FLOP ON GOVERNMENT-GROWN POT

Medical Marijuana: Health Minister Ducking The Issue

It is one thing for Health Minister Anne McLellan to take a sober second
look at the medicinal-marijuana file she inherited from predecessor Allan
Rock. But it is entirely another if she is so ideologically opposed to
marijuana use that she is stalling implementation of government policy.

Rock was running Health Canada in 2001 when the federal government allowed
therapeutic use of marijuana for people with less than a year to live or
those with AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries or
epilepsy, with a doctor's approval. Rock also said the government would
make marijuana available to them.

Of course McLellan has to take full responsibility for the functions of her
department. But there is increasing belief -- and not just among those who
want to use marijuana for medicinal purposes -- that the minister is
avoiding responsibility for the issue.

In May, senior government sources told The Toronto Star they believed
McLellan was deliberately misrepresenting the quality of government-grown
marijuana because she has developed cold feet and does not want to follow
through on the government plan to provide marijuana to Canadians who need
it for medicinal purposes.

McLellan has said she is uncomfortable with people smoking marijuana to
relieve pain or for any other reason. Nonetheless, she insists Ottawa is
not backing away from its plan, but that clinical trials are essential first.

Eight people were in court in Toronto last week to demand that the
government's medical marijuana regulations be thrown out, along with
possession laws. Failing that, they want the court to order Health Canada
to distribute the marijuana it has grown. They claim that medical users of
marijuana are put at risk by being forced to buy the drug, of unknown
quality, from criminal dealers.

McLellan has said the federal crop is "impure," a claim hotly contested by
the company growing it under strict controls for the government.

In August last year, Rock posed for photos with the thriving federal pot
crop in a mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. "Let's open this mine and get the
plants to patients as soon as we can," he said.

Last week, a different story was spun out of Ottawa, as the director of
Health Canada's cannabis medical access program said there had been a
misunderstanding and that the Flin Flon pot was meant solely for research
and clinical trials.

Misunderstanding? This sounds more like a Flin Flon flip-flop.

A health minister announces new government policy; the next seems to be
avoiding delivering on a large part of that policy. Where is the
consistency? More importantly, where is the prime minister?

When Rock announced the policy, it offered some hope of relief to gravely
ill people in a great deal of pain. If the government wants to rescind
policy or change law, it is entitled to do so. It might be challenged, and
it would be the wrong thing to do. But it would not be hypocritical. And
with the unconscionable delays for gravely ill people who were offered hope
and are now being denied it, it is just that.

- -- Robert Howard

Editorials are written by members of the editorial board. They represent
the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the individual author.