Recreational mar1juana user Jim Hoad, of Sturgeon Falls, ON, smokes a mar1juana cigarette on Parliament Hill during a protest in Ottawa, Canada Wednesday, July 9, 2003. Canada's government will sell mar1juana and seeds to sick people and their suppliers to fulfill a court order for it to provide medical pot by Wednesday. The announcement of the interim measure satisfies an Ontario court order while the federal government appeals the ruling. (AP Photo/CP, Chris Wattie) By TOM COHEN, Associated Press Writer TORONTO - Canada's government will sell mar1juana and seeds to sick people and their suppliers to fulfill a court order for it to provide medical cannabis by Wednesday. The announcement of the interim measure satisfies an Ontario court order while the federal government appeals the ruling. Under the program announced by Health Minister Anne McLellan, eligible patients can buy just over an ounce of dried mar1juana for $112, well below street prices, about once a month. Authorized growers can buy packs of 30 seeds once a year for $15. Health Canada spokeswoman Cindy Cripps-Prawak said the government-grown weed has a THC content of 10 percent, compared to between 3 percent and 18 percent in most street mar1juana. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the psychoactive chemical in mar1juana. The Ontario court ruling in January gave the government until Wednesday to broaden access to medical mar1juana, saying that current laws made "seriously ill, vulnerable people deal with the criminal underworld to get medicine." Wednesday's announcement continued Canada's long-running debate on medical mar1juana, and came as the government prepares to consider legislation that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot. The medical mar1juana issue involves people with chronic or catastrophic illness who say they need the soothing effects of THC to ease pain and control nausea and other problems. Canada unveiled plans for medical mar1juana in 2000 and began growing a supply in an abandoned mine shaft in Manitoba. New regulations took effect July 30, 2001, that expanded the number of Canadians eligible and allowed people to grow their own or designate someone to grow it for them. Those regulations also cleared the way for distribution of government-grown pot. Health Canada later announced it needed more tests on the effects of medicinal mar1juana and the quality of its pot before making any available. That brought last year's court ruling ordering the government to offer a legal supply instead of making patients buy off the street. Eligible patients include those with severe arthritis, cancer, HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites) and multiple sclerosis. Medical mar1juana users complain the Canadian system has been a bureaucratic maze intended to stifle the issue. While hundreds have received federal exemptions to grow and possess mar1juana, others complain about the difficulty of getting doctors to approve requests. In the United States, mar1juana is illegal under federal law. State laws in California, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington allow mar1juana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor's recommendation. The Supreme Court ruled last year that people charged with violating federal drug laws cannot use medical necessity as a defense.
Yeah, you're right. I should be more compassionate! Maybe we could subsidize their move with some bus passes??
It is definitely a good start. It will not be long before the data starts coming down from up north, data that will affirm that prohibition is an outdated policy fraught with problems that outweigh the problems caused by drugs themselves. This is just one of the first holes in the dam, and, may I add, it is about time.
I 've got a friend with acute diabetes, 57, veteren, former oilfield worker, Baptist; puked all day long almost everyday for more than a year, saw every doctor in the Med Center, no help. A friend from 'inside the loop' turned him on to some bud and he could actually eat. Now he smokes about an oz. a week. He needs it, it works for him, he's deathly ill without it. Why should it be illegal for him? Jeep
It shouldn't. It is excreble what the government is doing, especially in California and other states that have passed medical mar1juana laws. It is sad that seriously ill individuals are forced to turn to the criminal underground to acquire a plant that can alleviate many symptoms of many different illnesses.
Actually, I just misspelled it. From dictionary.com: ex·e·cra·ble adj. Deserving of execration; hateful. Extremely inferior; very bad: an execrable meal.
