Pubdate: Tue, 11 Aug 2015
Source: Guelph Mercury (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.guelphmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1418
Page: A8

LEGALIZE POT USE

An editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press:

Glenn Allan Price will get his day in court, but does the prosecution
of purveyors of medical marijuana really serve the public interest?
Well, if you're the federal Conservative government, pursuing an
out-of-touch political agenda, clearly it does.

Price, owner of a recently opened, unlicensed medical marijuana
dispensary, was charged by Winnipeg police with trafficking and
possession following a raid Aug. 4.

Many speculate an anti-marijuana activist in Vancouver, where
dispensaries have proliferated and are licensed by city council,
triggered the raid with a complaint to the Winnipeg Police Service
earlier this month.

But Health Canada's web page on medical marijuana, complete with a
personal message from Health Minister Rona Ambrose, says the
government will "proactively" pursue all storefronts selling the
substance. (The federal act regulating medical marijuana makes selling
from storefronts, even to those with medical authorization, illegal.)

Having had no luck in pushing local law enforcers in Vancouver to shut
down storefronts there, it appears the federal government found more
sympathy at the Winnipeg Police Service.

Price has made no secret that he will defend his trade in marijuana in
court, and Ottawa evidently replied "game on." This despite repeatedly
losing court challenges to successive laws that tightly restricted
access to medical marijuana, judgments that underscored the needless
frustrations of those suffering from conditions that can be relieved
by smoking or ingesting pot. But whether this force-of-the-law
response to a dispensary (if, in fact, the store was supplying upon
prescription, as Price contends) actually makes it to a hearing may
depend on the outcome of the current election campaign on Oct. 19.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has said if elected he would legalize
the substance, which the Tories have warned would result in children
falling into the grips of the evil weed.

Legalization makes the most sense. The evidence is regulation of a
drug that is no worse than alcohol - booze, too, can be manufactured
to varying strengths of alcohol and corrupted by additives to make it
more potent, or potentially lethal - is the better tack.

It allows for good control and for taxation of a recreational
substance, moving it into storefronts and out of the realm of
organized criminals. Neither pot nor booze should be used by the
young, the pregnant or when operating dangerous machinery or motor
vehicles - that's where government public-health campaigns, statutes
and sanctions are most useful.

Most Canadians of an age have grown up in the era of easy access
to pot, their experiences informing them better than an archaic Criminal 
Code and its Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which
simply reflect the refusal of a government to move with the times.

Past Liberal governments toyed with the idea of decriminalization,
amid a growing reluctance among prosecutors and judges to slap criminal 
records on recreational users. There exists in Canada uneven application 
of the law already, as various jurisdictions exert less
or more control over pot sellers and users.

Meanwhile, Canadians suffering from chronic diseases or ailments pot
can alleviate are forced to find a doctor comfortable in prescribing
its use, who will write an authorization that allows them to find a
producer/distributor to mail them their supply.
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MAP posted-by: Matt