WHO'S SMOKING IT?

ISN'T that just like a government, to bring a bureaucracy to a dope
deal? It's hard to believe, but Ottawa's involvement in growing and
supplying medical marijuana to the terminally ill and chronically
suffering makes the time when patients had to go to illegal dealers
seem like the glory days of medical marijuana.

Millions of Canadians use or have used marijuana recreationally. Not
all of them, or even many of them, as has occasionally been suggested,
need it for medical reasons. Of all those users, and out of all the
Canadians who are in serious, chronic pain or suffering from a
debilitating illness, however, only 1,742 are licensed to use
marijuana for medical purposes. That tiny figure is the result of a
hysterically irresponsible reaction by a government that sees great
harm where little exists but is blinded to benefits that could spring
from a more enlightened policy.

Marijuana is used medically to control pain and reactions to
treatments such as chemotherapy in victims of cancer and HIV/AIDS
antiretroviral treatment. Many doctors hesitate to recommend it
because they fear that not enough research has been done to establish
it as a safe and effective analgesic; politicians cling to the
doctors' doubts to justify their own lack of political courage in
opening up this promising field of pain relief.

It has been seven years since the courts ruled that Canadians have a
constitutional right to use marijuana as a medicine, but the
government has done little to facilitate that. Ottawa has its own
hydroponic grow-op in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, but the
quality of marijuana produced there is reported to be far inferior to
the stuff available on the street. And yet, Health Canada charges the
few pain-wracked Canadians who can get it legally a 1,500 per cent
mark-up over what it costs the government. The government, in fact,
seems to be happy with the status quo. Six months ago, Health Canada's
funding for research into the effectiveness and safety of medical
marijuana was cut. That pretty well guarantees that concerns about the
drug will continue to limit its use -- a neatly bureaucratic and
self-fulfilling prophecy.