WISHY-WASHY MCLELLAN SETS BACK MEDICAL MARIJUANA CAUSE

Awww, fuck! Here we go again. Medical cannabis users must be getting ready
to roll over into their graves with depression over the Aug. 13 police raid
that closed the Toronto Compassion Centre which supplied 1,300 patients,
followed by Health Minister Anne McLellan's gelatinous performance in front
of an audience of hostile doctors at the Canadian Medical Association
annual meeting last week.

Suddenly cornered by a totally misinformed doctor who said smoking one
joint is worse than smoking 10 cigarettes--show me the bodies, doc; I count
4 million dead tobacco addicts last year--McLellan went to pieces and
confessed she's 'uncomfortable' about the idea of patients smoking pot to
relieve pain or the government supplying any of the 250 kilograms of weed
already grown in a Flin Flon mine shaft until clinical trials are completed.

She wasn't so uncomfortable a couple of years ago when as Justice Minister
she didn't appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal's ruling that made it legal
for terminally ill people to use marijuana for pain relief. She created a
special exemption in the criminal law and then Health Minister Allan Rock
clumsily spent $5.7-million to grow research grade marijuana with the
intention to provide it to the ailing while clinical trials proceeded
McLellan's wishwash earned her applause from the biased Canadian Medical
Association and their insurers who are dead-set against prescribing
cannabis, yet inexplicably put in the unwanted gatekeeper position. But in
the following days Rock was publicly disagreeing with her while McLellan
and her staff were in full damage control mode asserting there was no
change in government policy.

What sad painful horseshit. Numerous bumblefucks have meant serious delays
in producing a 'research grade' crop of weed. Which means Canadians who can
legally smoke marijuana will probably expire before Health Canada ever
releases any of the dope they're currently sitting on.

Nine of those Canadians led by the founder of the Toronto Compassion Centre
Alan Young will be in Ontario's Superior Court on Sept. 19 and 20 to demand
access to that marijuana.

I felt determined to talk directly to McLellan and invite her to defend her
claim that she is not insensitive to the 800-odd Canadians who've dutifully
filled out their forms and wheedled signatures from the few physicians with
a conscience and are still stuck buying on the pricey unsure black market.
The closest I got to her was Special Assistant to the Minister Alex Swann.
He reiterated that there had been no change in policy and they were
continuing to work with Prairie Plant Systems to produce a research grade crop.

He got very vague when I inquired what THC level would constitute research
grade. When I inquired if clinical trials would begin immediately when that
supply was secured he admitted that not only did he not know but that the
clinical trials had not been designed yet. To which I impatiently sighed,
'Do you understand why the community of terminally ill are so mistrustful
of Health Canada? I get calls from guys like Jim Wakeford who are
alternately being robbed of their crop by the police, then called common
criminals because of this incompetence. They're pissed off because they've
been given a right without a remedy and they see their painful deaths being
hastened as a result.'

Swann promised to get to back to me with more info. And the next day Paige
Kovach from Health Canada called but was also unable to reveal the
specifics of the clinical trials Health Canada would require to release
their supply. She did e-mail back a list of three clinical trials currently
underway (or completed), funded by the Health Canada/Canadian Institute of
Health Research Medical Marijuana Research Program. The MMRP has been
established as a five-year research plan with a supposed funding of up to
$7.5 million. However, there was little in the material that led me to
believe research is proceeding with the urgency a pharmaceutical concern
would apply to the approval of a potentially profitable new drug.

It looks more like the kind of drag ass stall step perfected by DEA
ass-kissers and brainlocked Chretien Liberals.

If I were a spiteful person I'd wish a painful wasting disease on the loved
ones of all of them in the sincere hope they might awaken to the urgency
some of us already feel about a badly mishandled issue that should've been
settled long long ago.