Pubdate: Thu, 06 Aug 2009
Source: Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK)
Copyright: 2009 Brunswick News Inc.
Contact: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/onsite.php?page=contact
Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2878
Page: A11
Author: Charles W. Moore

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT? NOT IN CANADA

If you're fortunate enough to own an Apple iPhone, it seems whatever 
your interest, "there's an app for that," as the TV commercial tells 
us. "Apps" are software applications, usually small, 
specifically-focused, and inexpensive, that run on Apple's iPhone 
operating system, a slimmed-down version of Apple's Macintosh OS X 
for personal computers and servers.

There are literally thousands of these little programs available on 
Apple's online App. Store, one of the newest Apple has approved for 
sale being named simply "Cannabis," a US$1.99 iPhone and iPod app by 
Los Angeles-based Activists Justifying the Natural Agriculture of 
Ganja (AJNAG), who operate the AJNAG.com Website and 
MedicalCannabis.org database.

Cannabis the app. is designed to help legal marijuana users quickly 
locate the nearest medical cannabis collectives, cooperatives, 
doctors, clinics, attorneys, organizations, and other patient 
services in the 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana, four 
of which - California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island - have 
also authorized "dispensaries" to sell medical cannabis. Currently, 
legislatures of seven other U.S. states are considering medical 
marijuana bills.

Unfortunately, Canada isn't covered by this app, so the few thousand 
Canadians licensed by Health Canada to use medical marijuana won't 
find the iPhone Cannabis app very useful. However, because of 
Canada's perversely absurd and obstructive laws pertaining to medical 
marijuana suppliers, it probably wouldn't be a whole lot of help anyway.

Canada's medical marijuana supply regulations are nothing short of 
Kafkaseque. In April, the Harper Conservative government grudgingly 
responded to a January, 2008 Federal Court ruling striking down the 
previous limit of one licensed patient per producer as a violation of 
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by increasing the number of 
medical marijuana users and cynical slap in the face to medical 
marijuana advocates, especially those suffering from painful, 
debilitating illnesses whose symptoms can be relieved by therapeutic 
use of cannabis.

"From one to two patients, that's just insane," Eric Nash, a licensed 
Vancouver Island supplier under the Marijuana Medical Access 
Regulations commented to the Canadian Press. I couldn't agree more. 
The whole obstructive, punitive policy structure regulating medical 
marijuana use in Canada is utterly insane, not to mention inhumane.

Nash noted he's had several hundred requests for help from approved 
marijuana users, but is legally prevented from supplying them.

The cynicism of the Harperistas' increase to two patients per 
producer will hopefully face a court challenge as to its technical 
compliance with the Strayer ruling. In any event, it's calculated 
insult and injury to thousands of suffering people by a government 
making no secret of its perverse desire to phase out personal 
marijuana production entirely, notwithstanding that "official" 
medical marijuana supplied by Health Canada is reportedly so mediocre 
that only about 20 per cent of eligible patients actually use it, 
probably suiting the pot-hostile Conservatives just fine.

People struggling with painful, debilitating illness shouldn't have 
to battle their government and pay junkie-dealer prices for access to 
a safe, effective medicine that provides relief.

One of the few top-tier elected officials who has addressed the 
medical marijuana issue with reason and common sense, former Nova 
Scotia Tory premier John Hamm, who is perhaps not-coincidentally a 
medical doctor, said marijuana should not be regulated differently 
than pain-killing medications such as morphine or dilaudid.

"If it has medical benefits and it is apparent now that it does, then 
it should be handled the way we handle any other medication that 
comes on the market," Hamm observed, adding that people who possess 
small amounts of pot shouldn't be classified as criminals. However, 
regulation of drugs and criminal law are federal responsibilities, so 
Hamm's sensible perspectives didn't change anything.

Evidence, anecdotal and scientific, increasingly backs medical 
marijuana advocates' contention that cannabis could be one of the 
most powerful, versatile drugs in the healing arsenal, and one of the 
safest. Britain's prestigious medical journal, The Lancet wrote that: 
"The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health."

Meanwhile GPs are prevented from prescribing cannabis to patients 
suffering from chronic pain, but permitted to prescribe much more 
harmful and addictive drugs like Oxycodone if a powerful painkiller 
is indicated. How insane is that?
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart