Pubdate: Sun, 27 Apr 2003
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003, Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.fyiottawa.com/ottsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Jim White
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor, headline by newshawk

THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT IS DOING

Sometimes the parenthetical remarks by the editor seem rather obtuse at times.

For example, when Robert Merkin lambasted the government for failing to 
properly grow a weed -- marijuana -- and distribute it to patients, and 
that he could fail them for less money, you responded with "Very amusing, 
but what the government wants to do is provide a regular, standardized 
supply -- and that's easier said than done."

It may be easier said than done, but only for the government, and I think 
that is the point of Mr. Merkin's letter.

Marijuana has been cultivated and bred for certain characteristics -- just 
as have tomatoes, corn and other agricultural products for decades. The 
problem is the government has no idea what it is doing, and they seem to 
like it that way --nice and expensive, and a good stall tactic to boot.

Maybe when they really want to create a standardized, regular medical 
supply, they'll ask the people who know how to grow it, or perhaps they'll 
ask the American National Institute on Drug Abuse how they grow their 
"standardized medical supply" they've been mailing out to patients for decades.

Ahhh, but that would mean they'd then have to deliver the product, wouldn't it?

Strange how the only people who can't grow a good supply of pot are the 
ones who never wanted to grow it in the first place; no one else seems to 
have a problem.

Jim White

Oregon, Ohio

(Rest assured, Jim, that our government doesn't need to want to foul 
something up to foul something up)
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom