Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jan 2003
Source: Clinton News-Record (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003 Clinton News-Record
Contact:  http://www.clintonnewsrecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1725
Author: David Emslie

ALLIANCE WOULDN'T SEEK WIDE-OPEN MARIJUANA LAWS

While members of the Ontario Cannabis Alliance believe it is time for the 
marijuana laws to change, they also believe that legislation should lay 
down some limitations regarding its use.

Don Bain formed the alliance about a year and a half ago, in an effort to 
put together a group of like-minded people with an interest in seeing more 
reasonable laws put in place for the use of cannabis - both medicinal and 
recreational.

The alliance, the Vanastra man said, is presently comprised of 27 members - 
some growers, some users and some people who just have an interest in the 
topic.

"Everybody in the organization has different reasons for being in it. Some 
of them have loved ones with cancer, some had loved ones with glaucoma, 
some suffer from MS, some suffer from Hepatitis C. I was the only one who 
was looking at it from an alzheimer's point of view," he said.

Stating that he openly discussed the use of cannabis for treatment of the 
agitation brought on by his mother alzheimer's disease with those providing 
care for his mother, including his family doctor, Bain said, "I think 
doctors themselves are now starting to realize there are medical benefits 
to it."

The sharing of information in relation to cannabis was a key factor in the 
formation of the Ontario Cannabis Alliance. When Bain began growing 
medicinal medicine for his mother's ailment, he said, "I found there was so 
much information, I needed other people to absorb the information with me 
to try to sort through what was real information and what was propaganda," 
he said. "And it was hard to get people who were willing to discuss it 
openly and people who you felt you could trust who were like-minded and had 
the same goals.

"We didn't want to associate with somebody who was a great big commercial 
gardener and all they were worried about was moving poundages per week. We 
didn't want to become involved in that. And we wanted to look at it through 
a responsible, adult view, as opposed to a high school student's view."

Noting that he has always talked openly about the topic, Bain said if 
people approached him for information, he would share it. "And I maybe was 
my own worst enemy by being open. I needed people to know the facts on it, 
because I spent hours and hours researching. They need to know. They can't 
just...it's not commercial pot when you're growing for medical purposes; 
you need to produce a medical grade product."

The formation of the alliance provided an information exchange, he 
continued. "We could learn from each other on what our mistakes were. Learn 
about bugs, learn about the best ways of cloning, the best strains for 
medical purposes..."

It is the belief of the alliance, he said, that more research needs to be 
done on medical cannabis. "We think sources for medical cannabis have to be 
more freely discussed and growing techniques have to be more freely 
discussed," Bain said.

If legislation is ever put into place making the use of marijuana legal, 
such legislation will have to contain guidelines, he suggested.

"We believe - the cannabis alliance believes - that there should be 
legislation governing the place where it can and can't be smoked; we 
believe there should be legislation intact for the way it is distributed or 
can't be distributed," he said, adding that it is his personal belief that 
marijuana should be governed the same as the home wine and beer brewing 
industry. "You can make it for your own pleasure. Of course you can't sell 
it - that is bootlegging. We think the same types of laws should apply to it."

The alliance, he added, would also be in favor of having licensed 
establishments, where people could gather to smoke cannabis in a safe 
environment. "It will be a place people can go instead of this rambling 
around aimlessly."

He added that the alliance also believes the same age limitations should be 
set on marijuana consumption as those for establishments with a liquor 
license. Asked to comment on a Senate report that suggested a lower age 
limit of 16 years for marijuana consumption, Bain said, "I think that's 
asinine."

Commenting that the use of marijuana has to be respected, Bain said that 
there is a greater danger from people who are drunk than from those who 
have smoked marijuana. He said there have been many instances of people 
going out and getting impaired on alcohol, then going home and becoming 
"family annihilators." He added, though, that "nobody gets abused because 
somebody smoked a joint. And so many people get abused because somebody 
drank. And so we think - in our own organization - we believe that alcohol 
is a far greater evil."

Bain also commented on the holiday Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere 
(RIDE) statistics in Huron County, in which 17 drivers were charged this 
season, compared to only one last year. He said that if cannabis is 
legalized, there will be a need for a roadside cannabis test. "They have to 
do something because a standard test - a standard THC test currently can 
only tell whether you have had it in your system in the last 90 days. It 
takes 90 days to fully come out of your system. So they can't tell how much 
is in your system...how recent it is...it could be 40 days old or it could 
be two days old depending on what calibre of THC the pot had."

It is the view of the alliance, he said, that there must be responsibility 
associated with the production and use of cannabis. "We don't want it willy 
nilly and never, ever believed, even before they started talking about the 
decriminalization aspect in the last six months - we never, ever believed 
that it should just have the doors thrown open and say, 'What the hell, 
here you go.' We think legislation needs to be involved."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart