TWO SIDES TO MARIJUANA

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at the extent of the marijuana
business. This week, we wanted to look at views on the harm or benefits of
the drug.

Marijuana is part of Canadian culture whether you are for it or against it.
The fact is that marijuana farming, distribution and use is here and it's
not going away. It is being grown, sold, bought, smoked and even eaten by
more and more Canadians. According to federal statistics 600,000 Canadians
have criminal records for marijuana possession. In comparison there are
100,000 registered Canadians playing our national summer sport of lacrosse.
Marijuana cluture is as much a part of Canadian identity as beaver pelts
and western alienation.

Marijuana is best known as a psychoactive substance that is generally
smoked in order to experience an alteration of mood or consciousness. This
can lead to feelings from pleasant euphoria to intense paranoia depending
on the individual and amount ingested. People's attitude about altered
mental perception is likely the biggest reason people either endorse or
decry marijuana use. Proponents point to the relaxing effects of marijuana
use as a good thing. Opponents worry that a person's impaired judgement
can lead to a variety of undesireable actions ranging from prolonged apathy
to safety concerns.

What is generally accepted is that smoking anything is not a great thing to
do to your lungs. Regular marijuana smokers will experience the same
respiratory disease as tobacco smokers. Marijuana smokers counter saying
that because a lesser amount is smoked, the harmful effects are reduced.

This summer, Canada's house of sober second thought - the Senate - is
looking at the factors underlying the use of drugs in Canada. A report is
due out in August and if May's preliminary report is any indication, we can
expect further steps down the road of decriminalization.

So far the report has offered an opinion that marijuana is not a "gateway
drug." For years marijuana has been identified as the thin edge of the
wedge, a step down the path leading to the use of much more harmful drugs
like cocaine and heroine. While this concept is going up in smoke, the
residue remains.

Brian Taylor of the Cannabis Research Institute in Grand Forks says it is
confusing for kids who are being told that marijuana is part of the same
genre of drugs as crystal meth and crack. "Kids are off guard because they
are told marijuana is really bad. They smoke it and it's not so bad so
they are confused about hard drugs."

Taylor is a vocal advocate of using marijuana medicinally and points to
stacks of reputable research into the medicinal use of canabis sativa. The
most common and successful medicinal uses include addressing nausea
associated with some cancer and AIDS treatments, glaucoma, multiple
sclerosis, chronic pain and epilepsy.

However, like any antidote, too much cure can be just as harmful as the
disease.

Like all drugs cannabis comes with side effects - the most noticeable is a
"high." It is this high and its associated use that make cannabis unlike
any other drug Health Canada examines. However, armed with a five-year
budget of $7.5 million that is exactly what the Office of Cannabis Medical
Access is doing.

Marilyn de Wynter has been a drug and alcohol counsellor in Grand Forks for
over 20 years. She is cautious about the medicinal use of marijuana. She
says some of the good qualities of any substance can be duplicated for
medicinal use without the side effect.

"Marijuana has been used as an anti-nausea agent," she says. "But there
are probably much better drugs we can use to affect glaucoma."

De Wynter says that the major problem of chronic marijuana use is apathy.
"Marijuana use is tricky. Some people use it from the time they are 14.
When they are 30 they suddenly realize that they haven't done anything. The
problem is that chronic users see themselves as being just as successful as
anyone else."